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OUTLINES OE THE HISTOHY 



OP 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY 



De. edwaed zeller 



TRANSLATED WITH THE AUTHOR'S SANCTION 

BY 

SARAH FRANCES ALLEYNE 

AND 

EVELYN ABBOTT 




NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

1890 






APR IS 1921 



IK MEMORIAM 
SARAH FRANCES ALLEYNE 



/^ 



1^3 



AUTHOR'S PEBFACB 



For some years it has been my intention to respond to 
a request arising from various quarters, and add to my 
larger work on the Philosophy of the Greeks a short 
sketch of the same subject. But until the third 
edition of the History was brought to a conclusion I 
had not the leisure for the work. Sketches of this kind 
will proceed on different lines according to the aim 
which is held in view. My object has been primarily 
to provide students with a help for academical lectures, 
which would facilitate preparation, and save the time 
wasted in writing down facts, without interfering with 
the lecturer's work or imposing any fetters upon it. 
Hence I have made it my task to give my readers a pic- 
ture of the contents of the philosophical systems, and 
the course of their historical development, which should 
contain all the essential traits — and also to put into 
their hands the more important literary references and 
sources. But as in the last points I have not gone 
beyond what is absolutely necessary, so in the historical 
account I have as a rule indicated the parts very briefly 
with which historical considerations of a general kind or 
special explanations and inquiries are connected, or in 



viu AUTHORS PREFACE. 

which it seemed proper to supplement my earlier work. 
(An addition of the latter kind, in some detail, will be 
found in sections 3 and 4.) 

My outlines are intended in the first place for 
beginners, who as a rule form the majority of an 
audience. But these are rather confused than assisted 
if the historical material is given in too great abun- 
dance, or they are overwhelmed with the titles of 
books of which they will only see a very small portion. 
Anyone who wishes to study the history of philosophy 
or any part of it more minutely, must not content 
himself with a compendium, but consult the sources 
and the more comprehensive works upon them. At 
the same time, I am well aware that manuals may very 
properly be constructed on a different plan from mine. 
A trustworthy bibliography, for instance, furnished with 
the necessary hints on the value and contents of the 
various works, or a chrestomathy on the plan of 
Preller, but more strict in selection, would be very 
valuable aids in instruction. Nor will it be against my 
intention if the present work finds readers beyond its 
immediate object. Nevertheless, it is my opinion that 
every scientific exposition must set out with an 
accurately defined aim. It is highly objectionable 
that an author should constantly strive after other 
ends than that which is the main purpose of his book. 

Thk Authok. 
Berlin : Sejjteviher 27, 1883. 



TEANSLATOE'S PEBFACE. 



Of the following pages, the first part, down to the 
words ' practical life ' on p. 90, is the work of the late 
Miss Alleyne, whose manuscripts were entrusted to me. 
For the remainder, and for the revision of the whole, I 
am responsible. 

Miss Alleyne began her series of translations of 
Zeller's ' History of Philosophy ' with the ' Plato and 
the Older Academy,' published in 1876 in conjunction 
with Prof. Goodwin, of University College, London. 
This was followed in 1881 by the two volumes of * The 
Pre-Socratic Philosophy,' and in 1883 by ' The Eclec- 
tics.' It was also her intention, when the present 
work was ended, to translate the last volume of the 
• History.' But in the prime of life, and in the full 
vigour of her powers, sh« died, after a month's illness, 
August 16, 1884. 

The excellence of her work has received universal 
recognition. It was a labour of love. The theories of 
the Greek Philosophers, and their efforts to conceive 
the world in which they lived, had a deep interest for 



z TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 

her. An inward sympathy with them gave her an in- 
sight into the meaning of speculations which by many 
are deemed idle vagaries. To her they were steps or 
stages in the progress of the human mind, not merely 
words or opinions. In the ' being ' of Parmenides, in 
the ' dry light ' of Heracleitus, she perceived a begin- 
ning or foreshadowing of modem thought. Plato was 
' one of the books she would have taken with her to a 
desert island.' 

She knew the value of accuracy, and was at great 
pains to secure it. She had also a keen sense of literary 
style, and would turn a sentence three or four times 
before she could be satisfied with it. Hence the excel- 
lence of her work as a translator. But though her 
literary powers were of an uncommon order, to those 
who were personally acquainted with her they form 
only a small part of her claim to remembrance. For 
she united with rare intellectual gifts a truly noble and 
womanly character. She was one of those who live for 
others, themselves not caring to be known. There are 
many by whom her writings would not have been 
understood who cherish her memory as a great posses- 
sion, and feel that they have lost a friend never to be 

replaced. 

Evelyn Abbott. 
Balliol Collbgb, Oxpobd ; 
November 10, 1885. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



A. METHODOLOGIC AND LITERARY, 

BJUfl, PAGE 

1. The history of philosophy I 

2. Greek philosophy 5 

3. Original sources. The history of philosophy among the 

ancients 7 

4. Modem aids . . .14 

R. HISTORICAL INTROBUCTION, 

5. Origin of Greek philosophy. Its supposed derivation from 

the East .18 

6. Native sources of Greek philosophy 21 

7. The development of Greek thought before the sixth cen- 

tury B.c 24 

8. Character and development of Greek philosophy , , 28 



FIRST PERIOD. 



THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 
9. Course of its development 85 

L The Theee Eaeliest Schools. 

A. THE ANCIENT lONIANS. 

10. Thales 57 

11. Anazimander •••..«.... 39 



xii CONTENTS, 

BECT. PAOB 

12. Anaximenes 41 

13. Later adherents of the ancient Ionian school. Diogenes . 43 

B. THE PYTHAGOREANS. 

14. Pythagoras and his school 45 

15. The Pythagorean system: number and the elements of 

number 50 

16. The Pythagorean physics 62 

17. Religious and ethical doctrines of the Pythagoreans . . 55 

18. Pythagoreanism in combination with other doctrines . . 56 

O. TilE ELEATICS. 

19. Xenophanes 68 

20. Parmenides 60 

21. Zeno and Melissus 63 

IT. The Physicists of the Fifth Century b.c. 

22. Heracleitus 66 

23. Empedocles 71 

24. The atomistic school 76 

25. Anaxagoras , » . . 83 

III. The Sophists. 

26. Origin and character of Sophisticism 88 

27. Eminent Sophistical teachers . . . , . , . 91 

28. The Sophistical scepticism and Eristic . . . ♦ 92 

29. The Sophistic ethics and rhetoric . . . . • . 95 



SECOND PERIOD. 



SOCRATESy PLATO, ARISTOTLE, 
30. Introduction 99 

I. Socrates. 

81. Life and personality of Socrates 101 

32. The philosophy of Socrates. The sources, principle, method 103 

33. The nature of the Socratic teaching 107 

34. The death of Socrates 112 



CONTENTS. xiii 



II. The Smaller Socratic Schools. 

SECT. PAOK 

35. The school of Socrates : Xenophon .113 

36. The Megarean and the Elean-Eretrian schools , » 114 

37. The Cynic school 117 

38. The Cyrenaic school 122 

IIL Plato and the Older Academy. 

39. The life of Plato 126 

40. Plato's writings 128 

41. The character, method, and divisions of the Platonic 

system 134 

42. The propedeutic foundation of the Platonic philosophy . 136 

43. Dialectic, or the doctrine of ideas 140 

44. Plato's physics, matter, and the world-soul . , . . 145 

45. The universe and its parts . , . . , . 150 

46. Plato's anthropology . , . . . , , , 152 

47. Plato's ethics ......... 154 

48. Plato's politics 158 

49. Plato's views on religion and art 161 

50. The later form of the Platonic doctrine. The ♦ Laws ' . . 163 
61. The old Academy 166 

rv. Aeistotlb and the Peripatetic School. 

52. Aristotle's life 170 

58. Aristotle's writings . . . • . , . .172 

54. The philosophy of Aristotle. Introductory . . . . 179 

65. The Aristotelian logic . . 181 

56. Aristotle's metaphysics 187 

57. Aristotle's physics. Point of view and general principles . 194 

58. The universe and its parts , . , . . . . 197 

59. Living beings 201 

60. Man 204 

61. The ethics of Aristotle . . . . . . . . 209 

62. The politics of Aristotle 213 

63. Rhetoric and Art. Attitude of Aristotle 1 to religion . .219 

64. The Peripatetic school ...... .222 



2dv CONTENTS, 



THIRD PERIOD. 



TEE POST-ARISTOTELIAN PHILOSOPHT. 



SECT. 

65. Introduction 



FIRST SECTION. 

STOICISM, EPICUREANISM, SCEPTICISM, 

L The Stoic Philosophy. 

66. The Stoic school in the third and second centuries B.C. . . 229 

67. Character and divisions of the Stoic system . . .231 

68. The Stoic logic 234 

69. The Stoic physics ; the ultimate bases and the universe . 238 

70. Nature and man 243 

71. The Stoic ethics ; their general traits 244 

72. Continuation. Applied morals. The relation of Stoicism 

to religion 250 

n. The Epicueean Philosophy. 

73. Epicurus and his school . 255 

74. The Epicurean system. The Canonic 257 

75. The physics of Epicurus. The gods 269 

76. The ethics of Epicurus . 264 

ni. Scepticism. 

77. Pyrrho and the Pyrrhonians 268 

78. The New Academy . 269 



SECOND SECTION. 

ECLECTICISM, RENEWED SCEPTICISM, PRECURSORS 
OF NEO-PLATONISM, 

I. Eclecticism. 

79. It« origin and character ... ... 274 

80. The Stoicfl. Boethus, Panjetius, Posidonius . . 276 

81. The Academicians of the last century B.C. .... 279 

82. The Peripatetic school 282 



CONTENTS. XV 

BSCT. PAOB 

83. Cicero, Varro, the Sextians ..,»,.. 284 

84. The first centuries A.D. The Stoic school . . . . 286 

85. The later Cynics 293 

86. The Peripatetic school in the Christian period . » . 295 

87. The Platonists of the first century A.D. . » ' . .297 

88. Dio, Lucian, and Galen , . . . , , . . 299 

n. The Later Sceptics. 

89. iBnesidemns and his school 300 

m. The Peecuesoes of Nbo-Platonism. 

90. Introduction 305 

I. THE PURELY GEEBK SCHOOLS. 

91. The Neo-Pythagoreans 306 

92. The Pythagorising Platonists 311 

n. THE JEWISH GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

93. The period before Philo 316 

94. Philo of Alexandria » . . » . . . . 320 



THIED SECTION. 
NEO-PLATONISM. 

95. Origin, character, and development of Neo-Platonism . . 326 

96. The system of Plotinus. The supersensuous world . . 328 

97. Plotinus' doctrine of the phenomenal world . . . . 333 

98. Plotinus' doctrine of elevation into the supersensuous world 337 

99. The school of Plotinus. Porphyrins 340 

100. lamblichus and his school , • » . . » • 343 

101. The school of Athena . .347 



IKDBX 867 



OUTLINES 

OP THB 

HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

INTRODUCTION. 

A. METHODOLOGIG AND LITERARY, 

§ 1. The History of Philosophy, 

The problem of philosophy is to investigate scienti 
Scally the ultimate bases of Knowledge and Being, and 
to comprehend all Reality in its interconnection with 
them. The attempts at the solution of this problem 
form the subject-matter with which the history of 
philosophy is concerned. But they are so only to the 
extent that they connect themselves with greater 
wholes, with interdependent series of development. 
The history of philosophy must point out by what 
causes the human spirit was led to philosophic in- 
quiry ; in what form men first became conscious of 
its problems, and how they undertook to solve them ; 
how, in progress of time, thought subdued wider 
domains and found new statements of questions neces- 
sary, and new answers to them ; and how out of the 
multifarious repetition of this process arose all the 



9 INTRODUCTION. [§ 1 

philosopliic theories and systems with which we are at 
various periods more or less perfectly acquainted. In 
a word, it must describe the development of philosophic 
thought, in its historical connection from its earliest 
beginning, as completely as the condition of our 
sources of knowledge allow. 

As we are here concerned with the knowledge of 
historical facts, and as facts which we have not our- 
selves observed can only be known to us through 
tradition, the history of philosophy, like all history, 
must begin with the collection of direct and indirect 
testimonies, the examination of their origin and credi- 
bility, and the establishment of facts in accordance with 
such evidence. But if this problem cannot be solved 
without regard to the historical connection in which 
the particular fact first receives its closer determination 
and full verification, it is at the same time impossible 
to understand the progress of historical events unless 
we put together the particular facts not only in relation 
to their contemporaneous or successive occurrence, but 
also in relation to cause and effect; unless each phe- 
nomenon is explained in reference to its causes and 
conditions, and its influence on contemporary and suc- 
ceeding phenomena is pointed out. Now the theories 
and systems with which the history of philosophy is 
concerned are chiefly the work of individuals, and as 
such must be explained partly through the expe- 
riences which have given occasion to their formation, 
partly through the mode of thought and the character 
of their authors, the convictions, interests, and efibrts, 
under the influence of which they originated. But 



|1] THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPnY, S 

even if our authorities enabled us to carry out this 
biographical and psychological explanation far more 
completely than is the case, it would still be in- 
sufficient; for it would only inform us as to the 
immediate reasons of the historical phenomena, leaving 
unnoticed their more remote causes and the more com- 
prehensive connection to which they belong. The views 
of individuals always depend, though not in all instances 
to the same degree, upon the circle of presentations 
from which their spirit has derived its nourishment, 
and under the influence of which it has been developed ; 
and similarly their historical action is conditioned by 
the fact that they correspond to the necessities of the 
time, and find contemporary acknowledgment. 

On the other hand, however, these views do not 
remain confined to their first authors, they spread and 
maintain themselves in schools, and by means of 
writings; a scientific tradition is formed, the later 
members learn from the earlier, and through them are 
stimulated to the completion, continuation, and cor- 
rection of their results, to the asking of new questions, 
and the search after new answers and methods. The 
systems of philosophy, however peculiar and self- 
dependent they may be, thus appear as the members 
of a larger historical interconnection; in respect 
to this alone can they be perfectly understood; the 
farther we follow it, the more the individual becomes 
united to a whole of historical development, and the 
problem arises not merely of explaining this whole by 
means of the particular moments conditioning it, but 
likewise of explaining these moments by one another, 



4^ mTnODUCTION, [§1 

and consequently the individual by the whole. This 
does not mean that the historical facts are to be 
constructed in an a ^priori manner out of the con- 
ception of the sphere of life whose history is being 
considered, or out of the idea of the purpose to be 
attained through this history. By a purely historical 
method, on the basis of historical tradition, we must 
ascertain the conditions under which the actual course 
of events took place, the causes from which it pro- 
ceeded, and the concatenation of the Individual which 
was the result. These causes and conditions, so far as 
the history of philosophy is concerned, may be reduced 
to three classes: (1) the general conditions of culture 
in the particular nation at that time ; (2) the influence 
of the earlier systems upon the later ; (3) the indivi- 
dual character of the several philosophers. If for the 
explanation of philosophic theories, we confine our- 
selves to the last, we shall fall into that biographical 
and psychological pragmatism of which we have 
already spoken. If we start, for this purpose, from 
the consideration that philosophy is not an isolated 
domain, but only a particular member in the collective 
life of nations and of humanity, that in its origin, 
progress, and character, it is conditioned by reUgious 
and political circumstances, the general state of mental 
culture, and the development of the other sciences, we 
shall then make an attempt to understand it in rela- 
tion to these universal conditions of the history of 
culture. If we lay the greatest stress on the continuity 
of scientific tradition, on the internal connection and 
historical interaction of the philosophic schools and 



§ 1] THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOFIIY. 5 

systems, the history of philosophy appears as an 
isolated, self-included progression, proceeding from a 
definite starting-point, according to its own internal 
laws ; a progression which we shall the more thoroughly 
understand the more completely we succeed in showing 
each later phenomenon to be the logical consequence 
of its predecessor, and consequently the whole, as 
Hegel undertook to prove, a development fulfilling 
itself with dialectic necessity. But though this moment 
increases in importance the more independently philo- 
sophy develops itself, the direction and form of philo- 
sophic thought is, at the same time, likewise determined 
by the other considerations. These, however, do not 
always stand in the same relation to each other in 
regard to their influence and significance ; sometimes 
the creative energy of prominent personalities is more 
strongly felt, sometimes the dependence of the later 
systems upon the earlier, sometimes the operation of 
the universal conditions of culture. The historian has 
to inquire how much importance in the bringing about 
of historical results belongs to each of these elements, in 
any given case, and to draw a plan of the historical 
course and interconnection of the phenomena of which 
it consists, on the basis of this inquiry. 

§ 2. Greek Philosophy, 

The question as to the causes by which the world 
and human life are determined has occupied the spirit 
of man from the earliest times and in the most various 
places. But that which caHed it forth was originally 
not so much the desire for knowledge as the feelitig of 



6 INTRODUCTION. [§2 

dependence upon higher powers, and the wish to secure 
their favour ; while the path on which an answer was 
sought was not that of scientific inquiry but of mytho- 
logical poetry. Among a few nations only this pro- 
duced in course of time theological and cosmological 
speculations which try to gain a more comprehensive 
view of the origin and constitution of the world, but as 
long as these speculations continue to start from 
mythological tradition, and are satisfied with the 
amplification and remodelling of mythical intuitions, 
they can only be reckoned as precursors of philosophy, 
not as philosophic theories proper. Philosophy first 
begins when man experiences and acts upon the neces- 
sity of explaining phenomena by means of natural 
causes. This necessity may have appeared indepen- 
dently in different places when the preliminary condi- 
tions of it were present ; and we actually find among 
the Indian and Chinese systems of doctrine some which 
are far enough removed from the theological specula- 
tions of these nations to be truly described as their 
philosophy. But the thought of a rational knowledge 
of things asserted itself more strongly and with more 
abiding results among the Hellenes than in either of 
these countries ; and it is from them alone that a con- 
tinuous scientific tradition extends to our own times. 
The founders of Greek philosophy are at the same time 
the ancestors of our own ; their knowledge therefore 
has for us not merely an historical, but also a very 
important practical and scientific interest ; the former, 
however, exceeds all that the remaining science of the 
ancient world can offer, as much as Greek philosophj 



§«] GREEK PHILOSOPHY, 7 

itself, by its spiritual content, its scientific complete- 
ness, its rich and logical development, transcends all 
the rest of ancient science. 

§ 3. Original Sources. The History of 
Philosophy among the Ancients. 

Among the sources from which our knowledge of 
ancient philosophy is derived, the existing writings of 
the philosophers and fragments of their lost works, so far 
as they are genuine, as immediate sources, occupy the 
first place. Unauthentic writings, in proportion as 
their origin and date of composition can be determined, 
may be used as evidence for the standpoint and views 
of the circles from which they emanated. The indirect 
sources comprise besides independent historical accounts 
of the personality, lives, and doctrines of the philo- 
sophers, all the works in which these are occasionally 
mentioned. Among the latter the most valuable in- 
formation is obtained partly from books of extracts, 
which have preserved for us fragments of older writers, 
such as those of Athenseus and Gellius, Eusebius' 
irpoirapaa-Ksvr) svayysXiKi] (about 330 A.D.), Johannes 
Stobseus' great work (probably composed between 450 a.d. 
and 550A.D.), which is now, so far as any portions have 
been preserved, divided between the * Eclogues ' and the 
* Florilegium ; ' and Photius' ' Library ' (he died in 891 
A.D,); and partly from the writings of authors who for the 
establishment of their own theories enter minutely into 
those of their predecessors, as Plato, so far as we know, 
was the first to do in a comprehensive manner, and 
after him Aristotle, still more thoroughly; later on, 



8 INTROD UCTION, t§ « 

authors like Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, Galen, Sextus 
Empiricus, Numenius, Porphyry, lamblichus, Proclus, 
the commentators on Aristotle and Plato, Philo of 
Alexandria, and the Christian Fathers, Justin, Clemens, 
Origen, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Augustin, Theodoret, 
&c. From Aristotle, through the critical survey of the 
principles of his predecessors contained in the first book 
of his ' Metaphysics,' came the first impulse towards 
the independent treatment of the history of philosophy, 
which Theophrastus undertook in the eighteen books 
of his ' Doctrines of the Physicists ' (quoted as (fyvaiKal 
Bo^aL, and also as (jivatKrj laropia, ' History of Physics'), 
and in numerous monographs ; while Eudemus treated 
of the history of Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy, 
perhaps also of theological views, in separate works. 
On Theophrastus' ' History of Physics ' were founded, 
as Diels has shown (' Doxographi,' 1879), those reviews 
of the doctrines of the various philosophers which 
Clitomachus (about 120 a.d.) gave in connection with 
the criticisms of Carneades, and which seem to have 
formed the chief treasury of the later sceptics, the 
compilation of the ' Placita,' which was made about 
80-60 B.C. by an unknown author, and was already 
used by Cicero and Varro (an epitome of it has been 
to a great extent preserved in the Pseudo-Plutarchic 
' Placita Philosophorum '), the ' Eclogues ' of Stobaeus 
{vide supra), and Theodoret's 'EWtjiukoju iraOrj^aTwv 
OepaTTEVTi/crj, iv. 5 ff. Theodoret calls the author of 
this work Aetius; the date of its compilation would 
seem to fall in the first third, and that of the 
Plutarchic ' Placita' in the middle, of the second cen- 



§8] SOURCES. ANCIENT WRITINGS. ft 

turj after Christ. The author of the Pseudo-Plutarchic 
(TTpw/iarsLS (about 150 A.D. ; fragments of them are 
preserved in Euseb. ' Pr. Ev.' i. 8), would seem to have 
drawn directly from Theophrastus, as also did two 
doxographs used by Hippolytus (alpsaswv eXsy^o^, B. i. 
formerly designated as ' Philosophumena of Origen') 
and Diogenes Laertius. Further traces of this literature 
can be discovered in the Fathers of the Church, in 
Irenseus (about 190 A.D.), Clement (200 A. D.), Eusebius 
(died about 340 A.D.), Epiphanius (died in 403 a.d.), 
Augustin (died in 430 a.d.). The last offshoots of it 
that have been preserved are the treatise Trspl (ptXo- 
<T6(f)ov laToptas by the pseudo-Gralen, and Hermias' 
BtaavpfMos TOiv s^w ^i\o<t6(J)(ov, About 70 B.C. Antio- 
chus of Ascalon, the Academic, tried to justify his 
Eclecticism by a syncretistic exposition of the Aca- 
demic, Peripatetic, and Stoic doctrines, which was 
therefore based on motives not altogether historic. 
Towards the end of the same century, Eudorus the 
Academic and Arius Didymus the Eclectic Stoic followed 
him in a similar direction. (For fragments of Arius Didy- 
mus, see Diels, ' Dosogr.' 445 if. ; Stob. « Eel.' ii. 32 ff.) 
Besides these dogmatic and historical surveys of the 
opinions of the philosophers, there is a second series of 
writings, which treat of them in a biographical manner 
partly as individuals, and partly according to schools, 
and unite the exposition of their doctrines with 
accounts of their lives, the common doctrines of a 
school with those of its founder. To these belong 
Xenophon's 'Memorabilia' of Socrates, and whatever is 
to be considered historical in the dialogues of Plato ; 



10 INTRODUCTION. [§ 8 

the lost writings of the Platonists, Speusippus, Xeno- 
crates, Philippus, and Hermodorus, concerning their 
teacher; of Heracleides of Pontus, concerning the 
Pythagoreans ; of Lyco the Pythagorean (about 320 B.C.), 
concerning Pythagoras. This branch of the literature 
of the history of philosophy has its chief seat, however, 
in the Peripatetic school, and among the scholars of 
Alexandria who were connected with it. Monographs 
on particular philosophers, and extracts from their books, 
are mentioned by Aristotle and Theophrastus, also by 
the Aristotelians, Dicsearchus, Aristoxenus (/S/oi avBpcov, 
UvdayopLKal airocjidasLs), Clearchus, and Phanias. 
About 250 B.C. the celebrated Callimachus of Cyrene 
composed in Alexandria his great literary and historical 
work, which was of much importance for the history of 
philosophy, entitled irivaKss tmv sv irdcrrj iraiSsia 
hiaXafju^avTcov koI u)V crvvsypay^av. About 240 B.C. 
Neanthes of Cyzicus, composed a work irspl hho^cov 
dvSpcop ; about 225 B.C. Antigonus of Carystus wrote 
his /3tofc ; about 200 B.C. Hermippus the Peripatetic o 
KaWtfMdxst'09, another jBloc, a rich mine of biographical 
and literary notices for the later writers. Satyrus, the 
Aristarchean, another Peripatetic, also wrote ^ioi, and 
Sotion a 8t<xSo%^ twp (pikoaocfxov^ which continued to be 
the authority for the division of particular philosophers 
among the schools ; extracts from the two works last men- 
tioned were made by Heracleides Lembus (180-150 B.C.). 
About the same time Antisthenes the Peripatetic, of 
Rhodes, wrote his (jytXocrocfxov ^La^o-)(jDLL ; the similar work 
of his countryman Sosicrates seems to have appeared 
rather later (130 B.C.). To the Academic school belonged 



§8] SOURCES. ANCIENT BIOGRAPHIES. 11 

Aristippus (about 210 B.C.), who wrote a treatise irspX 
<f>v(nok6^(f3v, and the work of Clitomachus irspX alps- 
(T£(ov, perhaps not distinct from that mentioned on p. 8.- 
From the school of the Stoics came Eratosthenes 
(274-194), the celebrated scholar whose chronological 
dates were adopted for the history of philosophy; 
Apollodorus (about 140 B.C.), also a Stoic, who seems to 
have followed him almost entirely in his ' Chronica ; ' 
also the treatises of Cleanthes and Sphserus on indi- 
vidual philosophers, and a work of Panaetius on the 
schools of philosophy, but how far the three last- 
mentioned bore an historical character is doubtful. 
Nor does Epicurus appear to have given any historical 
accounts of the earlier philosophers. From his school 
came a few works which attempted to do this; an 
untrustworthy treatise on the Socratics by Idomeneus 
(about 270 B.C.); a o-waycoyT) t(ov BoyfjuaTcoVy and a life 
of Epicurus by Apollodorus (about 120 B.C.) ; a avvra^os 
rSiv <j)ikoa6(f)(ov by Philodemus (about 50 B.C.), this 
last, probably a mere compilation, from which the two 
Herculanean catalogues of the Academic and Stoic phi- 
losophers seem to have been taken. Among the con- 
temporaries of Philodemus are the two Magnesians, 
Demetrius and Diodes, the former of whom wrote on 
authors of the same name, and the latter on the lives 
of the philosophers ; and Apollonius of Tyre, the Stoic 
whose Hfe of Zeno is quoted. Somewhat earlier in 
date is Alexander Polyhistor, who wrote a history of 
the philosophic schools {(f>iXo(T6(j)(ov StaSo^j^a/), and an 
interpretation of the Pythagorean symbols. Hippo- 
botus' catalogue of the philosopher.?-^ and his treatise 



13 INTROD UCTION. [| 8 

iTspl alpsascov appear to belong also to about the 
same period. From the first century of our era, the 
history and doctrines of Pythagoras were continually 
expounded in the Neo-Pythagorean school ; for example, 
by Moderatus and Apollonius of Tyana, 60-80 a.d., and 
by Nicomachus, about 130 a.d. But these expositions 
are altogether uncritical and without historical value. 
The writings of Favorinus (80 to 150 a.d.j contain 
many notices of the history of the philosophers, and 
Eusebius has preserved fragments of a critical survey of 
the philosophic- systems by Aristocles the Peripatetic 
(about 180 A.D.). Indeed, it is only in fragments, and 
through isolated quotations, that the great majority of 
the works hitherto spoken of are known to us, and of 
these fragments and quotations we owe a considerable 
portion to a single work, the ten books of Diogenes 
Laertius on the lives and doctrines of celebrated philo- 
sophers. For however carelessly and uncritically this 
compilation, probably dating from the second quarter 
of the third century a.d., may have been made, the in- 
formation it contains is of priceless worth, since most 
of the more ancient sources have been entirely lost. 
This information is as a rule given at second or third 
hand, but- very often with the names of the authorities 
to whom Diogenes, or the authors transcribed by him, 
may be indebted for it. Among the Neo-Platonists, the 
learned Porphyry (about 232-304 a.d.) has done good 
service for the knowledge of the older philosophers, 
down to Plato, by his commentaries, and also by his 
(j)t\6cro(l)os laropla, from which the life of Pythagoras 
has been preserved. The copious biography of Pytha- 



§8] S0URCB8. ANCIENT COMMENTARIES. 13 

goras by his pupil lamblichus served as an introduction 
to a dogmatic work by the same author. For the history 
of the Neo-Platonic school, the chief authority is (about 
400 A.D.) Eunapius' ^lol (f>Ckocr6^wv koI aocfao-TiMV 
(Ehetoricians) ; the later period of the school was 
treated of in Damascius' (J)l\6(to(J)09 laropla (about 
520 A.D.), of which only some fragments remain. 
Subsequently to 550 A.D., Hesychias of Miletus com- 
posed his work irspl rcov iv TraiBsta StaXa/x-vlrayrcoz/jfrom 
which the articles on the ancient philosophers in Suidas' 
Lexicon (between 1000 A.D. and 1150 a.d.) are chiefly 
taken. The treatise, however, which we possess under 
the name of Hesychius is a late Byzantine compilation 
from Diogenes and Suidas, as is also the so-called 
«Violarium' of the Empress Eudocia (1060 to 1070 
A.D.), probably a forgery of the sixteenth century. 

Among the sources of our knowledge of the ancient 
philosophers, the wgrks devoted to the explanation of 
their writings occupy an important place. At how 
early a period the necessity of such explanations was 
felt is shown by the fact that about 280 B.C., Grantor, 
the Academic philosopher, commented on Plato's 
'TimaBus,' the Stoic Cleanthes (about 260 B.C.) on 
the treatise of Heracleitus, and that Aristophanes 
of Byzantium (about 200 B.C.) arranged the works 
of Plato in trilogies. But the most flourishing period 
of the commentators' activity first commences about 
the middle of the first century B.C. At this time 
Andronicus the Rhodian, the editor of ' Aristotle,' and 
Theophrastus established in the Peripatetic school the 
learned study of Aristotle's writings. From him 



14 tNTRODVCTIOK, [§8 

down to Alexander of Aphrodisias, the renowned 
expositor, stretches a long series of men who dis- 
cussed these writings either in commentaries or in 
introductory and comprehensive works. This example 
was followed by the Platonic school. Soon after 
Andronicus, first Eudorus, and then Dercyllides and 
Thrasyllus made themselves known by their treatises 
on Plato, and after the time of Phitarch this philo- 
sopher was as zealously expounded in the Platonic 
school as Aristotle in the Peripatetic. The Neo- 
Platonists (and individual scholars even earlier) devoted 
themselves with equal energy to both, until the sixth 
century. Of the commentaries that have come down 
to us, those of Alexander on Aristotle's ' Metaphysics,' 
and of Simplicius (about 530 A.D.) on the ' Physics,' and 
the books ' De Cselo,' are of conspicuous value for the 
history of philosophy ; next to these come the remaining 
commentaries of the same writers, and those of Johannes 
Philoponus (about 530 A.D.) on the works of Aristotle, 
and of Proclus (410 a.d. to 485 a.d.) on Plato. 

§ 4. Modem Aids, 

Of modern writings on Greek philosophy, only those 
will be quoted here which have appeared during the 
last two centuries ; and of that number, only such as 
are of special importance in the history of our science, 
or of practical use in regard to its study at the present 
time. As a foundation, we must first m ention Brucker's 
*Historia critica Philosophise' (1742 ff . ; Ancient 
Philosophy is treated of in vols. i. and ii.), a learned 
and critical work of conspicuous worth, though its 



§43 MODERN Aim, Ifi 

standpoint of historical criticism is not beyond that of 
its time ; and, side by side with this, the appropriate por- 
tions of J. A. Fabricius' 'Bibliotheca Grrseca ' (1705 fF., 
considerably enlarged in the edition of Harless, 1790 ff.). 
At the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the 
nineteenth century, the history of philosophy was 
treated of in its whole extent in three comprehensive 
works : Tiedemann's 'Geistder speculativen Philosophie' 
(1791-1797); Biihle's ' Lehrbuch der Geschichte der 
Philosophie' (1796-1804); and Tennemann's 'Ge- 
schichte der Philosophic ' (1798-1819). Each of these 
works has its value ; that of Tennemann retained its 
well-merited reputation the longest, in spite of the 
one-sidedness with which Kant dominates its histo- 
rical judgment. Next, in regard to Ancient Philo- 
sophy, come the works of Meiners (* Geschichte der 
Wissenschaften in Griechenland und Eom,' 1781 ff,, 
&c.) and Fiilleborn (« Beitrage,' 1791 £f.). Soon, 
however, the influence of the post-Kantian philosophy 
asserted itself, and ancient science began to be treated 
in a new spirit. Schleiermacher's treatises on various 
Greek philosophers (* Sammtliche Werke, Zur Phil.,' 
vols. ii. and iii.), but especially the introduction and 
notes to his translation of Plato ('Platon's Werke,' 
1804-1828), which was followed after his death by his 
concise and suggestive ' History of Philosophy,' with 
its original points of view (1839, ' W. W. Z. Phil.,' vol. 
ii. sec. 1) ; and Bockh's writings (the most important 
are those printed in vol. iii. of the *Kleine Schrif- 
ten,'on < Plato,' 'Life of Philolaus,' &c., 1819; 'Unter- 
suchungen iiber das kosmische System des Plato,' 1852) 



16 INTRODUCTION, [§4 

gave the type for a treatment of history, entering 
more deeply into the special character of the ancieni 
philosophers and the inner laboratories of their thoughts. 
Hegel's ' Vorlesungen * on the History of Philosophy 
(published after his death, 1833, 1840, in vols, xiii.-xv. 
of his Works) emphasise the dialectical necessity of the 
evolution of the later philosophers from the earlier, 
not without some one-sidedness, but they have power- 
fully contributed to the scientific comprehension and 
historical criticism of the philosophic systems. The 
meritorious works of Ritter (' Gesch. der Phil./ vols, 
i.-iv., 1829 f., 1836 f.) and Brandis (« Handbuch 
der Gresch. der Grriechisch-Eom. Phil.,' 3 Th, in six 
volumes, 1835-1866) are allied with Schleiermacher 
as to their general tendency. To mediate between 
learned inquiry and the speculative view of history, 
and to gain a knowledge of the importance and inter- 
dependence of the individual from tradition itself 
through critical sifting and historical connection, is 
the task proposed to itself by my own * Philosophie 
der Grriechen' (first edition, 1844-1852; third edi- 
tion, 1869-1882; fourth edition of the first part, 
1876). From the standpoint of the school of Herbart, 
Striimpell, in a more concise manner, has written his 
*Geschichte der theoretischen Philosophie der Griechen,' 
1 854, and ' Geschichte der praktischen Philosophie der 
Griechen von Aristoteles,' 1861. Among the scholars of 
other countries, by whom the history of philosophy in 
modern times has been advanced, are Victor Cousin 
(1792-1867), in his * Fragments philosophiques,' his 
'Introduction a Thistoii-e de la Philosophic,' and hi? 



I 



§ 4] mob:ern aids. \i 

* Histoire Grenerale de la Philosophie ; * Greorge Grrote 
(1794-1871), in portions of his 'History of Greece,' 
especially vol. viii., his 'Plato' (1865), and the un- 
finished 'Aristotle' (1872). Of the numerous com- 
pendiums which deal with this subject, the following 
may be mentioned: Brandis, 'Gresch. der Entwick- 
lungen der Grriech. Phil.,' 1862-1864; Eitter and 
Preller (subsequently Preller only), 'Historia Philo- 
sophise Grrseco-Komanae ex fontium locis contexta,' 
1838, sixth edition, 1879 ; Schwegler, ' Gresch. der 
Phil, im Umriss,' 1848, eleventh edition, 1882 ; ' Gesch. 
der Griech. Phil.,' edited by Kostlin, third edition, 
1882; Ueberweg, ' Grundriss der Gesch. der Phil.,' 
1 Theil, 1862, sixth edition, 1880 ; E. Erdmann, ' Grund- 
riss der Gesch. der Phil.,' Theil i. 1866, eighth 
edition, 1878; Lewes, 'History of Philosophy,' vol. i 
1867; J. B. Meyer, 'Leitfaden zur Gesch. der Phil.,' 
1882, pp. 8-32. Among the works which are con- 
cerned with the history of special philosophical subjects, 
the most important are the following : Prantl, ' Gesch 
d. Logik im Abendland,' vol. 1. 1885 ; ' Lange, ' Gesch. der 
Materialismus,' Theil i., second edition, 1873, fourth 
edition 1882; Heinze, 'Die Lehre vom Logos in der 
Griech. Phil.,' 1872 ; Siebeck, ' Gesch. der Psychologic,' 
Theil i. Abth. 1 ; ' Die Psychologic vor Aristoteles,' 
1880; Ziegler, 'Gesch. der Ethik,' 1881; L.Schmidt, 
*Die Ethik der alten Griechen,' 1882; Hildenbrand, 
' Gesch. und System der Kechts- und Staatsphilosophie,' 
vol. i. 1860. Diels (' Doxographi Graeci,' 1879) has edited 
the Greek doxographers and investigated their autho- 
rities ; the literature of the Florilegia is discussed by 



18 INTRODUCTION. CS 4 

Wadismuth (' Studien zu der Griech. Florilegien,' 
1882); the most complete collection of fragments of 
the ancient philosophers as yet made is that of 
Mullach ('Fragmenta Philosophorum Grrsec.,' three 
parts, 1860, 1867, 1881). The most important mono- 
graphs OD particular philosophers and their works will 
be mentioned in the proper places. 

B. niSTOBICAL INTRODUCTION, 

§ 5. Origin of Greek Philosophy, Its supposed 
derivation from the East. 

An old tradition affirms that several of the most 
important of the Grreek philosophers — Pythagoras, 
Democritus, Plato, and others — owe their scientific 
doctrines to Eastern nations. Even in the time of 
Herodotus the Egyptians tried to represent themselves 
to the Greeks as the fathers of the Greek religion, and 
from the third century before Christ and onwards we 
meet with the opinion, perhaps first introduced by 
Orientals, but readily adopted and further developed 
by the Greeks, that the whole Greek philosophy, or at 
any rate many of its most influential doctrines and 
systems, came from the East. The Jews of the Alex- 
andrian school, from the second century before Christ, 
set up a similar claim for the prophets and sacred 
writings of their nation; and the Christian scholars from 
Clement and Eusebius till after the close of the Middle 
Ages supported them in it. These Jewii-h fables indeed 
are now generally abandoned ; but th^ theory of aD 
Eastern origin of Greek philosophy as such continuea 



§ 5] GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND THE EAST. 19 

to find advocates. Its most strenuous defenders in 
modern times are Eoth (' Gesch. der abendl. Phil.' 
vol. i. 1846, 1862 ; vol. ii. 1858) and Gladisch (the 
latter in a series of works since 1841 ; cf. Zeller's 'Pre- 
Socratic Philosophy,' vol. i. p. 35). 

There is no doubt that the forefathers of the Hel- 
lenes brought from their Asiatic abodes into their new- 
home, together with the groundwork of their language, 
certain religious and ethical presentations akin to those 
of the other Indo-Germanic peoples ; in this new home 
itself they experienced for centuries the influence of 
their Eu,stern neighbours, especially the Phoenicians, and 
through the effects of such influence the later Hellenic 
nationality developed itself out of the Pelasgic. We 
may also give credit to the tradition which says that 
the Hellenes afterwards received the first elements of 
their mathematical and astronomical knowledge from 
the East. But that they borrowed philosophic doc- 
trines and methods from thence (irrespective of certain 
late phenomena) cannot be proved. Often as this 
assertion is made by authors of the Alexandrian and 
post-Alexandrian period, not one of them can show 
that he has taken it from a trustworthy tradition, or 
from one that goes back to the facts themselves. On 
the contrary we are confronted with the remarkable 
phenomenon that the authorities become more and 
more silent the nearer we approach the period of the 
supposed events, and are more and more copious the 
farther we recede from them ; and that in proportion 
as the Greeks become acquainted with more distant 
Oriental nations, so do the supposed instructors of their 



20 INTRODUCTION, i% & 

ancient philosophers increase in number. This state 
of things decidedly indicates that the later statements 
are not derived from historical racollection, are not 
testimonies, but mere conjectures If on ^he other 
hand we seek to infer the dependeucb of Grreek philo- 
sophy on Oriental speculations froni their internal 
similarity, this appearance vanishes as suon as n^ regard 
them both in their historical definiteness, and ascribe 
neither to the Grreeks nor the Orientals what later 
interpretation has introduced into ttieir dcotrines. 
Their coincidence then is seen to be c^Jnfined to points 
in regard to which we do not require the explanation 
that the Greek philosophers wholly or partially derived 
their doctrines from Oriental sources. This theory is 
not merely indemonstrable, but has weighty and posi- 
tive reasons against it. The Eastern nations with 
whom the G-reeks down to the time of Alexander came 
in contact, so far as our knowledge respecting them 
extends, had indeed mythologies and mytLical cos- 
mogonies, but none of them possessed a philosophy, 
none made an attempt at a natural explanation of 
things, which could have served the Greek thinkers as 
the source or pattern of their own ; and if even some- 
thing of philosophy had been found among them, 
the difficulties arising from language would have put 
great hindrances in the way of its transfer to the 
Hellenes. Greek philosophy, on the other hand, bears 
an altogether national stamp. Even in its most ancient 
representatives it displays none of the phenomena 
which elsewhere universally appear when a nation 
derives its science from without ; no conflict of indi- 



§ 6] GREEK I-JtlZOSOPHY AND THE EAST. 21 

genous with alien elements, no use of uncomprehended 
formulae, no trace of slavish appropriation and imitation 
of the traditional. And while among the Orientals 
science is entirely a monopoly of the priesthood, and 
therefore dependent on priestly institutions and tradi- 
tions, not only was Greek philosophy from its very 
commencement wholly free a.nd self-dependent,. but the 
Greek people were more and more absolutely devoid 
of any special priestly class or hierarchy the farther we 
remount towards their earliest antiquity. If lastly, we 
take the older and more trustworthy evidence, Aristotle 
('Metaph. i. 1, 981 b. 23) allows that the Egyptians 
were the discoverers of the mathematical sciences, but 
he never mentions Egyptian or Oriental philosophemes, 
though he carefully notices all traces of later doctrines 
in the earlier philosophers. In the time of Herodotus 
even the Egyptian priests do not as yet seem to have 
thought that philosophical knowledge might have 
come to the Greeks from them. Democritus (Clemens, 
' Strom.' i. 304 A) allows no precedence to the Egyptian 
sages even in geometry, before himself, and Plato 
(' Kep.' iv. 435 E ; « Laws,' v. 747 C) ascribes to the 
Egyptians and Phoenicians to (fnXo^pw^Tov, and to the 
Hellenes to (jxXofjiaOss as their characteristic quality. 

§ 6. Native Sources of Greek Philosophy, 

The real origins of Greek philosophy are to be found 
in the happy endowments of the Greek nation, in the 
incitements afforded by its situation and history, and 
the course taken by its religious, moral, political, and 



22 INTRODUCTION, [§ 6 

artistic development down to the period in which we 
discover the first attempts at philosophic inquiry. No 
other nation of antiquity was endowed from the very 
commencement with so many and various advantages 
of disposition as the Hellenic, in none do we find prac- 
tical address and active power united with so delicate a 
feeling for the beautiful and such a deep and keen 
thirst for knowledge, the healthiest realism with so 
much ideality, the acutest perception of individuality 
with such a remarkable genius for the orderly and 
agreeable combination of individuals, the shaping of a 
beautiful and self-consistent whole. To this natural 
temperament must be added the favourable character 
of the position of their country, which afforded stimulus 
and resources of the most diverse kinds, but only 
bestowed its gifts on those who knew how to earn them 
by their own exertions. With their settlements on the 
bridge connecting Europe and Asia, in islands and on 
richly developed coasts of moderate fertility, the Grreeks 
were marked out for the liveliest intercourse with each 
other and with their neighbours ; by some of the latter, 
so long as these retained their superiority in power and 
culture, they were considerably influenced {vide supray 
p. 19), but they also knew how to free themselves in 
time from this influence, to conquer or Hellenise the 
strangers, and to open for their own nationality a wide 
field of operation through extensive colonisation. Thus 
in the small commonwealths of the Hellenic cities, the 
foundations of a culture unique in itself, and in its 
historical effects, were early develoj^ed. Those views 
of Nature from which the worship of the gods in the 



§ 6] GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION, 23 

pre-Hellenic period arose were ethically deepened and 
artistically transformed ; the gods were raised to moral 
powers, the ideals of human activities and conditions, 
and if religion as such (in the mysteries as little as in 
the public worship) did not transcend the limits of an 
anthropomorphic polytheism, it contained living and 
powerful germs, which needed only to be developed in 
order to do so. And because it was more concerned 
with worship than doctrine ; because it possessed no uni> 
form and universally acknowledged dogmatic system, 
but only a mythology handed down by tradition with 
manifold variations, and kept by the active imagination 
of the people and the poets in a constant state of flux ; 
because, above all, it had no regularly organised priest- 
hood endowed with external power — for all these reasons, 
despite the attacks to which an Anaxagoras, a Prota- 
goras, a Socrates were subjected (Aristotle is scarcely to 
be included here), it opposed, generally speaking, no 
obstacles to the free movement and progress of thought 
among the Grreeks at all comparable to those which 
had to be combated in the Middle Ages and in the 
Oriental kingdoms. The same freedom reigns in the 
moral life and civil institutions of the Hellenic people, 
and in Athens and the Ionian colonies, precisely those 
portions which did the most for its science, it asserted 
itself to an extent that was of great importance for 
scientific labours. No less important, however, in this 
respect was the second fundamental feature of Grreek 
life, that respect for custom and law, that subordination 
of the individual to the whole, without which the repub- 
lican constitutions of the Grreek cities could not have 



24 INTRODUCTION. [§ 6 

subsisted. From the freedom with which men moved 
in all the relations of life, scientific thought derived the 
independence and boldness which we admire even in 
the most ancient Grreek philosophers; the taste for 
order and law which had developed itself in civil life 
demanded also that in the theoretic view of the world 
the individual should be comprehended in a whole and 
made dependent upon the laws of that whole. How 
essentially, moreover, the formal training of thought and 
speech must have been advanced by the animated move- 
ment and numerous claims of civil life, and how greatly 
scientific activity must have thereby benefited, may 
easily be seen. A similar service was rendered by poetry, 
which in its epic, lyric, and didactic forms was so richly 
developed in the four centuries preceding the first 
beginnings of Greek philosophy; it embraced the 
theological, cosmological, and ethical intuitions of the 
Grreek tribes in pictures and sayings which were re- 
garded as the expression of universally recognised truth 
by the contemporary and succeeding period ; and thus 
indicated to the rising philosophy the presuppositions it 
had to consider, and either endorse or reject, 

§ 7. The Development of Greek Thought before the 
Sixth Century B.G, 

If then we survey the position to which Grreek 
thought had attained in the directions indicated, pre- 
vious to the sixth century before Christ, we shall find 
at first theological presentations of a general kind, as 
is natural, moving upon the soil of the traditional 



§ 7] GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND COSMOGONIES. 26 

Homeric and Hesiodic mythology. Nevertheless, among 
the poets of the seventh and sixth centuries, the traces 
are perceptible of a gradual purification of the idea 
of Grod, for Zeus as the uniform representative and 
protector of the moral order of the world begins to 
come forward more prominently from among the mul- 
tiplicity of gods. On the one hand (Solon. 'Fr.' 13, 
17, f,) the difference between divine and human justice 
is acknowledged, but on the other (Theognis, about 540, 
V. 373) doubts are expressed of the latter, which could 
only lead to a critical state of mind in regard to the 
traditional ideas. But the need of worthier conceptions 
of the Deity first asserted itself more definitely and 
powerfully in the poets of the fifth century, when philo- 
sophy had already commenced its attacks upon the 
popular polytheism. As to cosmological theories, their 
groundwork is the 'Theogony' of Hesiod, from which 
the meagre fragments of some other expositions (those 
of Epimenides and Acusilaus), and of the most an- 
cient Orphic Theogony used by Plato, Aristotle, and 
Eudemus, are not far removed; while other Orphic 
Theogonies better known to us, with their theological 
sjmcretism and pantheism, unmistakably belong to the 
post -Aristotelian period. Nevertheless, the ideas and 
reflections which in these ancient cosmogonies combine 
to form a representation of the origin of the world are 
of a very simple description, and the question of the 
natural causes of things is not as yet entertained. 
Pherecydes of Syros (about 540 B.C.) approaches it 
somewhat more closely. He describes Zeus, Chronos, 
and Chthon as the first and everlasting, and the earth 



26 INTRODUCTION, [§ 7 

as clothed by Zeus in its many- coloured garment; lie 
also speaks of a conquest of Ophioneus by Chronos and 
the gods. Thus his exposition seems to be based upon 
the thought that the formation of the world is a con- 
sequence of the operation of the heavenly VL])on the 
terrestrial, and that in this process the unregulated 
forces of nature were only gradually overcome. But 
the mythical form of representation conceals thoughts 
under enigmatical symbols, and that which ought to be 
explained by its natural causes still appears throughout 
as the uncomprehended work of the gods. Among the 
Greeks, as everywhere else, the universally recognised 
moral laws are referred to the will of the gods, and their 
inviolability is founded on the belief in Divine retribu- 
tive justice. This belief gained considerably in power 
from the time that the ideas concerning a future state 
entered its service, and the shadowy existence in Hades, 
beyond which the belief in immortality of the Homeric 
period never went, was filled with greater life and mean- 
ing, through the doctrine of a future retribution. But 
though this change had gradually been taking place 
since the eighth and seventh centuries, together with 
the increasing spread of the mysteries — and the Orphic- 
Dionysiac mysteries especially contributed to it through 
the dogma of the transmigration of souls — it would 
nevertheless seem that the predominant mode of 
thought was not deeply affected by the belief in a 
future life, until towards the end of the sixth century, 
and that it was itself primarily only a means for recom- 
mending dedications, through hope and fear ; it was 
under the influence of Pythagoreanism that the belief 



§ 7] PHILOSOPHY AND GNOMIC MORALITY. 37 

appears first to have been more universally spread, and 
turned to account in a purer moral tendency. With 
this religious treatment of ethical questions, however, 
it was inevitable in so lively and capable a people as 
the Grreeks that the development of intelligent moral 
reflection should go on side by side. The traces of this 
may be followed from the Homeric portrayals of cha- 
racter and moral sayings, and Hesiod's practical rules of 
life, through the fragments of the later poets ; they are 
most marked in the Grnomic poets of the sixth century, 
in Solon, Phocylides, and Theognis. The development 
of such a tendency in this period is also indicated by 
the fact that most of the men reckoned among the so- 
called Seven Wise Men exhibit it. The story of the 
Wise Men (which we iirst meet with, as then universally 
recognised, in Plato, ' Protagoras,' 343 A) is for the rest 
entirely uu historical, not merely as to the statements 
concerning the tripod, their maxims, their meetings 
and letters, but also as to the theory that seven men were 
acknowledged by their contemporaries to be the wisest. 
Even their names are very variously given : we are 
acquainted with twenty-two belonging to widely dif- 
ferent periods. Only four are to be found in all the 
enumerations, viz. : Thales, Bias, Pittacus, and Solon. 
Of the rest those most frequently mentioned are 
Cleobulus, Myson, Chilon, Periander, and Anacharsis. 
The connection of this practical wisdom with the 
beginnings of Grreek science is shown by the signifi- 
cant fact that the same man stands at the head of 
the seven who opens the series of Grreek physicists. 



28 INTRODUCTION. [§ 8 

§ 8. Character and Development of Greek Philosophy, 

As a product of the Hellenic spirit, Grreek philosophy 
exhibits the same characteristic features ; it accompanies 
the development of that spirit with its own, becomes 
an increasingly important factor in that development, 
and, after the loss of political independence, the leading 
power in the life of the Grreek people. Having grown 
strong in practical life, at the awa.kening of scientific 
necessity, thought first turns to the consideration of 
the world, of which the Greek felt himself a part, and 
in which he was already accustomed through his re- 
ligion to adore the most immediate original revelation 
of the divine powers. It does this with the simple 
self-confidence which is so natural to early inquiry 
before it is acquainted with the difficulties awaiting it or 
discouraged by disappointments, and especially natural 
to a people like the Greeks, who were so happy and so 
much at home in the world around them, and stood, in 
the main, on such familiar terms with their gods. Greek 
philosophy, therefore, in its first period was in respect 
to its object a philosophy of nature ; for its essential 
interest lay in the inquiry into the origin and 
causes of the universe. The problem of the nature 
and mission of man was treated in an isolated 
manner, and rather in a popular than a scientific form. 
Further, this philosophy was, in respect to its pro- 
cedure, a dogmatism : i.e. it seeks to obtain a theory 
of the objective world before it has given account to 
itself of the problem and conditions of scientific know- 
ledge. Finally, in its results it is realistic, and even 



§ 8] DEVELOPMENT OF PHILOSOPHY. 29 

materialistic ; not until the end of this period was the 
difference between spiritual and corporeal brought to 
consciousness by Anaxagoras. Already, however, in- 
terest had begun to be diverted from this wholly 
physical inquiry, in connection with the change which, 
since the Persian War had taken place in the conditions 
and needs of the Greeks; the Sophists destroy by 
their Sceptic and Eristic doctrines belief in the 
cognisability of objects, and require in its stead a 
knowledge that is practically useful and subservient to 
the ends of the subject; but Socrates was the first to 
lay a new foundation, not only for this practical philo- 
sophy, but for philosophy in general. 

By Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, Grreek philosophy 
was brought to its scientific climax. The consideration 
of the problem and conditions of knowledge leads to the 
development of logic ; physics are supplemented on the 
one side by ethics, and on the other by metaphysics 
(Plato's * Dialectic,' and Aristotle's ' First Philosophy') ; 
the formation, classification, and combination of con- 
cepts constitutes the fixed nucleus of the scientific 
method ; the immaterial essence of things which is the 
object of philosophic thought, the idea or the form of 
the idea opposes itself to its phenomenon as a higher 
reality, the spirit is distinguished as thinking essence 
from its body, and as man acknowledges it as his proper 
task to develop this higher part of himself, and to 
govern the lower by means of it, so the creative 
activity of nature is directed to bringing the form, as 
the end of its production, to its manifestation in matter. 
But though this was an advance not only beyond the 



30 INTRODUCTION. [§ « 

philosophy of the time, but also beyond the general 
standpoint of the Hellenic view of the world, though 
the harmony of the inner and the outer, the simple 
unity of spirit with nature which had formed the 
original presupposition for the classic beauty of Greek 
life was interrupted, this change had nevertheless been 
preparing in the development of the Greek nation, and 
in it the features which distinguish ancient philosophy 
from modern are undeniable. In the concept-philosophy 
of Socrates and his successors a forward movement was 
made in the scientific sphere, similar to that achieved 
by the plastic art and poetry of the fifth century in 
the region of art ; out of the multiplicity of pheno- 
mena the commoi traits, the unchangeable forms of 
things were taken as the essential element in them ; in 
these were seen the proper object of artistic exposition 
and of scientific knowledge ; science and art coincide 
in their common direction towards the ideal. This 
idealism, even in Plato, does not bear the modern 
subjective character; the forms of things are not 
products of thought either divine or human ; they 
stand in plastic objectivity, as prototypes of things, 
over against the spirit which contemplates them. Far 
as the ancient Greek standpoint was transcended by 
the ethics of Socrates, and still more of Plato, the latter 
nevertheless remained true to the aesthetic as well as 
the political character of Greek morality ; and though 
Aristotle by his preference for scientific activity goes 
beyond this, his doctrine of virtue is wholly Greek ; 
he, too, upholds the connection of ethics with politics, 
the lofty contempt of material work for the purposes of 



§ 8] DEVELOPMENT OF PHILOSOPHY. 8J 

gain, and that opposition of Hellenes and barbarians, 
the strongest expression of which is his defence of 
slavery. The stricter conception of personality is 
wanting in Plato and Aristotle, and its rights are very 
imperfectly recognised by them, especially by Plato. 
The study of nature is not only pursued with the 
liveliest interest by Aristotle, but even Plato is not | 
hindered by his idealism from intense admiration of I 
the beauty and divinity of the visible world ; and he ! 
and his disciple are agreed in their conviction of the ^ 
adaptation of means to end in nature, in that aesthetic 
view and worship of nature which clearly show the 
reaction of those intuitions whose most ancient product 
was the Greek natural religion. 

An important change took place in philosophy, as 
in the whole sphere of Grreek thought, after the end 
of the fourth century, under the influence of the con- 
ditions brought about by Alexander's conquests. The 
taste for natural investigation and purely theoretic 
inquiry unmistakably retrograded ; side by side with 
the Academy and the Peripatetic schools, and before 
long decidedly preponderating over them, appeared the 
Stoics and Epicureans, who placed the centre of gravity 
of philosophy in Ethics ; while in Physics they allied 
themselves to the pre-Socratic systems, appropriating 
and developing from these, however, for the most part 
only those elements which bore upon the moral and 
religious view of the world. Ethics themselves among 
the Stoics and Epicureans have the character partly of 
individualism, partly of an abstract cosmopolitanism; 
widely as those philosophers differ from each other in 



32 INTRODUCTION, [§ « 

many respects, both schools require elevation above the 
limits of nationality, independence of all things exter- 
nal, the self-satisfaction of the wise man in his inner 
life. On these points the contemporary sceptics are 
likewise in harmony with them, but they sought to 
attain the same practical end by another road, through 
entire abandonment of knowledge. From the inter- 
course of these schools with each other and with their 
predecessors after the second half of the second 
century B.C., a reaction set in against the scepticism of 
the New Academy: namely, that eclecticism which 
was strongest in the Academy, but likewise found 
entrance among the Stoics and Peripatetics, while in 
the school of ^nesidemus scepticism acquired a new 
centre, and among the Neo-Pythagoreans and the 
/Platonists connected with them the eclectic and 
sceptical tendencies of the time unite to form a half- 
Oriental philosophy of revelation, developiug itself 
partly on Greek soil and partly on that of Judaic Hel- 
lenism. During the first centuries after Christ this 
mode of thought increasingly spread ; and in the 
middle of the third it was developed by Plotinus as 
Neo-Platonism into a comprehensive system, which 
overcame all others or adopted them into itself. With 
the dissolution of the Neo-Platonic School in the sixth 
century Greek philosophy disappears as a distinct 
phenomenon from the theatre of history, and only 
continues to exist in combination with foreign 
elements in the service of a new form of culture in 
the science of the Middle Ages and of modern times. 
It is undeniable that this development led Greek 



§8] DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK FHILOSOPHY. 33 

thought further and further from its original starting- 
points. But certain important features still remain to 
show that we are always on Grreek soil. Abrupt as is the 
opposition in which reason and sense are placed by the 
ethics of the Stoics, life according to nature continues 
to be their watchword : in physics the Stoics went back 
from the Platonic- Aristotelian dualism to the hylozoism 
of Heracleitus; by their teleological view of the 
universe they approximate to the anthropomorphism of 
the popular religion, and in their theology they under- 
took the defence of the same notions with which science 
had in truth long since broken. Epicurus, by his 
mechanical physics, sets himself in the most marked 
opposition to the popular belief as well as to the 
teleological explanation of nature; but his gesthetic 
needs oblige him to adopt a new though inadequate 
doctrine of the gods ; and if in his ethics he dis- 
cards the political element of ancient Greek morality 
more completely than the Stoics, the harmony of the 
sensible and spiritual life, which is his practical ideal, 
approximates on that account more nearly to the 
original Hellenic view. The sceptical schools, also, are 
not far from that view in their practical principles, 
while on the other hand they accept the impossibility 
of knowledge as a natural destiny with a placidity 
which is no longer so easy in the Christian period. 
But even the phenomenon which announces most 
clearly the transition from the Greek world to the 
Christian, the Neo-Pythagorean and Neo-Platonic 
speculation, makes its connection with the ancient 
mode of thought plainly perceptible. Though it places 



34 INTROD VCTION, [§ 8 

the visible world far below tlie invisible, the former is 
still regarded as filled with divine powers, as a 
manifestation, perfect in its kind, of the higher world. 
The beauty of the world is defended against the 
Christian's contempt for Nature and its eternity against 
the theory of a creation ; and those orders of super- 
human essences in whom the divine powers descend to 
the world, and with whose assistance man is to raise 
himself to the Deity, are the metaphysical counterpart 
of the popular polytheism, of which these philosophers 
were the last champions. 



1 



FIEST PERIOD. 

THE PRE-SOCRATIG PHILOSOPHY, 

§ 9. Course of its Development, 

The first attempt among the Greeks at a scientific 
explanation of the world was made by Thales the 
Milesian, who was followed by his countrymen Anaxi- 
mander and Anaximenes, and later by Diogenes of 
Apollonia and other representatives of the ancient 
Ionian school. Through the lonians, Pythagoras and 
Xenophanes, these endeavours were transplanted to 
Lower Italy and carried on with such independent 
inquiry that from each of them there arose a new 
school. These three most ancient schools, whose 
origin dates from the sixth century before Christ, 
agree only herein, that in regard to the causes of 
things which science has to point out, they think 
primarily of their substantial causes — i,e, that from 
which they arose, and in which, according to their 
essential nature, they consist ; but they do not as yet 
definitely face the problem of explaining origin, decay, 
and change as such, and of discovering the universal 
cause of these phenomena. Thus the ancient Ionian 
philosophers inquire of what matter the world was 
formed and in what way the world arose from it. The 
Pythagoreans seek the essence of which things consist 
in number, and derive their existence and qualities 



86 PEJS-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§9 

from the fixed and numerically determined regularity 
of phenomena. The Eleatic philosophy, starting 
from the unity of the world, through Parmenides 
recognises its essence in Being as such ; and by un- 
conditionally excluding all Non-being from the con- 
ception of Being, declares the multiplicity of things 
and motion to be unthinkable. 

A new departure of natural philosophical inquiry 
begins with Heracleitus. In asserting that in the 
ceaseless change of matter and the combinations of 
matter there is nothing permanent except the law of 
this change, he proposed to his successors the problem 
of explaining this phenomenon itself, of stating the 
reason of change and motion. Empedocles, Leucippus, 
and Anaxagoras attempted this by reducing all Be- 
coming and all change to the combination and separa- 
tion of underived, imperishable, and in themselves 
unchangeable material substances, and thereby deriving 
Becoming itself from one original Being, which differed 
indeed from the Being of Parmenides in respect of its 
multiplicity and divisibility but had otherwise the 
same essential qualities. These primitive substances 
are conceived by Empedocles as qualitatively distin- 
guished from each other, limited as to number, and 
divisible to infinity ; by Leucippus as homogeneous in 
quality, unlimited in number, and indivisible ; by 
Anaxagoras as different in quality, unlimited in number, 
and divisible to infinity. In order to explain motion, on 
which all combination and division of substances is 
based, Empedocles annexes moving forces to the 
elements in a mythical form ; Leucippus and Democritus 



I 



§9] COURSE OF ITS DEVELOPMENT. 87 

remove the atoms into empty space ; lastly, Anaxagoras 
takes refuge in the world-forming Spirit. 

Here the standpoint hitherto occupied by physics 
is in point of fact transcended ; it was abandoned in 
principle by the Sophistic doctrine. This denies all 
possibility of knowledge, restricts philosophy to the 
questions of practical life, and even deprives practical 
life of any universally valid rule. Thus it brings about 
the Socratic reform of philosophy; in part directly. 
and in part indirectly, inasmuch as it rendt red that 
reform a necessity through the one-sided and doubtful 
character of its own results. 

I. The Three Earliest Schools. 
A. the ancient ionians. 

§ 10. Thales, 

Thales, a contemporary of Solon and Croesus, was a 
citizen of Miletus, whose ancestry was derived from the 
Boeotian Cadmeans. His birth was placed by Apol- 
lodorus, according to Diog. i. 37, in 01. 35, 1, i,e, 
640 B.C. (it was probably, however, in 01. 39, 1, or 624 
B.C.), and his death in 01. 58, i,e, 548-5 B.C. The 
former of these dates appears to be founded on that of 
the solar eclipse in 585 B.C. (vide infra). The position 
assigned him as the head of the Seven Wise Men {vide 
sup. p. 27) and what is said of him in Herod, i. i70 
and Diog. i. 25, are evidence of the esteem in which 
his practical wisdom and statesmanlike ability were 
held. His mathematical and astronomical knowledge, 
acquired, according to Eudemus, in Phoenicia and 



38 PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§ 10 

Egypt and transplanted to Grreece, are likewise cele- 
brated; among the proofs given of this, the most 
famous is that he predicted the solar eclipse which 
occurred, according to the Julian calendar, in 585 B.C., 
on May 28 (Herod, i. 74 and elsewhere.) It was no 
doubt in connection with these mathematical studies 
and the scientific taste awakened by them, that he 
undertook to answer the question concerning the 
ultimate basis of things in an unmythological form ; 
and, on the other hand, it is consistent with the 
elementary character of these, the most ancient Greek 
mathematics, that his physics did not extend beyond a 
first beginning. He declared water to be the matter 
from which all things arose and of which they consist, 
and that the earth floats upon the water. Aristotle ^ 
speaks about the reasons of this theory, but only from 
his own conjecture, for he possessed no writing of 
Thales, and doubtless none existed ; those which are 
mentioned by later writers, together with the doctrines 
quoted from them, are to be regarded as forgeries. As 
to the way in which things arise from water, Thales 
does not seem to have explained himself further ; he 
probably thought that the efficient force was directly 
combined with matter, and conceived this force in the 
spirit of the old natural religion as analogous to living 
forces, as is seen in the assertions (Arist. ' De An.' i, 5, 
411 a. 7. 19) that all is full of gods, and that the magnet 
has a soul — i.e. life — since it attracts iron. That he 

• Metaph. i. 3, 983 b. 22. and Hippo together, and may 

Theophrastus expresses himself have found something in the 

more distinctly in Simpl. Phys. latter about which nothing was 

L'3, 21 (Diels, Doxogr. 476) ; but recorded in reference to Thales. 
hi is here speaking of Thales 



§101 THALES. 89 

expressly discriminated, on the other hand, the force 
that forms the world as God or Spirit or World-soul, 
from matter, we have no reason to suppose. But how- 
ever meagre this first commencement of a physical 
theory may seem to us, it was of great importance 
that a beginning should be made. We find thus con- 
siderable progress already achieved by Anaximander. 

§ 11. Anaximander, 

This important and influential thinker was a fellow- 
citizen of Thales, with whose theories he must certainly 
have been acquainted. He was born in 611-610 B.C., and 
died soon after 547-6 B.C. (Biog. ii. 2). Pre-eminent in 
his time for astronomical and geographical knowledge, 
he prosecuted the cosmological inquiries raised by Thales 
with independent investigations, and wrote down the 
results in an original treatise which was early lost; 
being thus, side by side with Pherecydes, the oldest 
Grreek prose writer, and the first philosophical author. 
He takes as the beginning of all things {dpxv) ^he 
unlimited (aTrscpov), i,e, the infinite mass of matter 
out of which all things arise, and into which they 
return by their destruction, in order ' to render to each 
other atonement and punishment for their offence 
against the order of time.' (Simpl. ' Phys.' 24, 18). This 
primitive matter, however, he conceived neither as 
composed of the later four elements, nor as a substance 
intermediate between air and fire, or air and water,* 

* As is maintained by several sumptions given above is defen- 

of the Greek commentators on ded by Liitze, Ueher das 'direipov 

Aristotle, partly in contradiction A.^s (Leipzig, 1878), and both 

to their own statements else- together by Neuhauser, Anaxi- 

where. The second of t>e as- mander Miles. (1883), s 44-273. 



40 JPRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY, [§11 

nor lastly as a mixture of particular substances in 
which these were contained as definite and qualita- 
tively distinct kinds of matter.* From the express 
statement of Theophrastus {ajp, Simpl. *Phys.' 27, 17 
ff. 154, 14 ff.), and from the utterances of Aristotle,* 
we may rather infer that Anaximander either dis- 
tinguished his unlimited from all definite material 
substances, or, as is more likely, never explained him- 
self at all concerning its particular nature, but meant 
by it matter in general, as distinct from particular 
kinds of matter. He argued, doubtless wrongly, that 
this primitive matter must be unlimited, or it would 
otherwise be exhausted in the creation of things.^ As 
primitive matter the unlimited is underived and im- 
perishable, and its motion is also eternal. From 
the latter doctrine follows the separation {iKKpcvsa6ac\ 
of particular kinds of matter. First the warm and the 
cold were parted off; from both arose the damp, from 
the damp were separated the earth, the air, and the 
sphere of fire which surrounded the earth as a spherical 
crust. When this burst asunder wheel-shaped husks, 
filled with fire and having apertures, were formed : 
these being moved by currents of air, revolve around 
the earth, the shape of which is conceived as cylin- 
drical, in an inclined horizontal direction. The fire 



* On this assumption, upon b. 22. Pe Crelo, iii. 5, 303 b. 13 

which Ritter bases his division ff. Cf. Pre-Socratic Philosophij 

of the Ionic philosopljcrs into i. 256 ff. 

Mechanical and Dynamic — an ' Arist, Phi/s. iii. 4, 203 b. 

assumption which is still shared 18; c. 8, 208 a. 8. Cf. Plut, 

by some, see Pre-Socratio Philo- Placit. i. 8, 4. (Stob. Eel. i. 

»oj)hy, i, 240, note 4. 21)2) &c. Pre-Socratio Philosophy 

*' Phy8. L 4, init. iii. 5, 204 i. 234 ff. 



§11] ANAXIMANDER. 41 

which the wheel-shaped rings allow to stream forth 
from their apertures during their revolutions, and 
which is continually renewing itself by means of the 
exhalations of the earth, gives the appearance of stars 
moving through space ; a conception which may seem 
very strange to us, but is in truth the first known 
attempt to explain the regular movement of the 
heavenly bodies mechanically, in the manner of the 
later theory of the spheres. The earth was at first in a 
fluid state ; from its gradual drying up, living creatures 
were produced, beginning with men, who were first in 
the form of fishes in the water, which they only 
quitted when they had so far progressed as to be able 
to develop themselves on land. That Anaximander, 
in harmony with the presuppositions of his cosmology, 
held a periodical alternation of renewal and destruction 
of the world, and in consequence a series of successive 
worlds, without beginning or end, is maintained by a 
trustworthy tradition traceable to Theophrastus, and 
wrongly discredited by Schleiermacher. * 

§ 12. Anaximenes. 

Anaximenes, also a Milesian, is called by later 
writers the disciple of Anaximander, which is at least 
60 far true that he clearly betrays the influence of his 
predecessor. His life may approximately be assigned 
to the years between 588 B.C. and .524 B.C. * Of a 

* Ueher A7iaximandros,'Weike, of life) fell in 01. 58, 1 (548 

3 Abth. ii. 195 A. B.C.), and under this hypothesis 

2 On the ground of the state- that the data in Uiog. ii. 3, can 

ment (Hippol. Eefnt. hcer. i. 7), be changed, and that yeyevnTai 

that his aKfii) ( = the 40th year denotes the a/c/t^. 



42 PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§ IJ 

treatise of his in Ionic prose, only a small fragment has 
been preserved. 

lu his physical theory, Anaximenes differs from 
Anaximander in taking for his first principle not 
infinite matter without more precise determination, 
but with Thales a qualitatively determined matter; 
but he again coincides with Anaximander in choosing 
for this principle a substance to which the essential 
qualities of Anaximander's primitive essence, un- 
limitedness and unceasing motion, equally appeared to 
belong. In the air both are to be found. It not only 
spreads itself boundlessly in space, but is also conceived 
in perpetual motion and change, and proves itself 
(according to the ancient notion which makes the soul 
identical with vital air) to be the ground of all life 
and all motion in living beings. 'As the air as 
our soul holds us together, so the blowing breath 
{irvsvjjia) and the air embraces the whole world.' 
(Anax. ap. Plut. ' Plac' i. 3, 6.) Through its motion, 
without beginning or end, the air suffers a change 
which is properly of a two-fold kind : — rarefaction 
{ixdvcocrcs, apal(0(TLs) or loosening {^akapov, dvsais); 
and condensation {irvKvwa-ts) or contraction (^avariX- 
XsaOai, sTTiTacns), The former is at the same time 
heating, and the latter cooling. Through rarefac- 
tion air becomes fire, through condensation it becomes 
wind, then clouds, water, earth, stones ; an idea which 
Anaximenes no doubt deduced in Ihe first instance 
from the atmospheric processes and precipitates. In 
the creation of the universe, the earth was first 
formed ; according to Anaximenes, it is flat like a 



§12] ANAXIMENES, 48 

plate, and therefore borne upon the air ; the vapours 
ascending from it are condensed into fire ; the stars 
are portions of this fire pressed together by the air ; 
of a similar shape to the earth, they revolve around it 
laterally floating upon the air (supposing this was 
not intended to apply merely to the planets). Accord- 
ing to credible testimony, Anaximenes agreed with 
Anaximander in maintaining an alternate construction 
and destruction of the world. 

§ 13. Later adherents of the ancient Ionian School. 
Diogenes, 

The school which the Milesian philosophers had 
founded in the sixth century also appears in the fifth. 
Hippo, who lived in the second third of this century, 
held with Thales that water, or more precisely the 
moist {vypov) was the primitive matter of the world. 
In this he was led by the analogy of animal life : ^ as 
also he regarded the soul as a moisture originating 
from the seed. From water arose fire, and from the 
conquest of water by fire, came the world. Anaximenes 
was followed Id his doctrine by Idseus, who taught 
that the air was the primitive matter ; those inter- 
mediate theories also which are mentioned (sup, p. 39, 
note), and which Aristotle repeats without naming their 
author, are mostly allied with those of Anaximenes. 
Even so late as 440-425 B.C. Diogenes of Apollonia 

* According to the statement to Thales this statement appears 

of Theophrastus, which is to be to rest on supposition only ; in 

gathered from Simpl. Fhys. 23, Hippo it seems to have the sup- 

18 f. Plut. Plac. i. 3, 1 (cf. port of his treatise. 
Diels, Boxogr. 220). In regard 



44 rHE-SOCBATIC PHILOSOPHY, [§ 13 

made an attempt to defend the monistic materialism 
of Anaximenes against Anaxagoras' doctrine of the 
world-forming Spirit ; saying that Anaximenes found 
those qualities in the air itself, which Anaxagoras 
believed could be ascribed only to spirit. If, on the 
one hand (in opposition to the innumerable primitive 
substances of Anaxagoras), one common matter must 
be assumed for all things, as otherwise no mixture and 
reaction of them would be possible ; and, on the other 
hand, this matter must be a thinking and rational 
essence : as is proved partly by its distribution accord- 
ing to design, and partly and especially by the life and 
thought of men and animals, we find these very 
cliaracteristics united in air. It is air which ferments 
all things and (as soul) produces life, motion, and 
thought in ani-mals. Air is therefore, according to 
Diogenes, the underived, unlimited rational essence 
which governs and orders all things. All things are 
merely transformations of air (srspoLdocrsLs). Their 
transformation (according to Anaximenes) consists in 
rarefaction and condensation, or, which is the same, in 
heating and cooling. The denser and heavier sank 
down, the lighter ascended, and thus the two masses 
were separated from which, in further process of 
development, the earth and the heavenly bodies arose 
through the revolution efi'ected by the warm. From 
the terrestrial slime (no doubt by the influence of the 
solar heat), plants, animals, and human beings were 
produced: the soul of living creatures consists of a 
kind of air which though not nearly so warm as that 
of the sun, is warmer than the atmospheric air. 



§18] ZArun lOmANS, DIOGBNES. 46 

On the particular character of this air, that of the 
various kinds of living creatures depend. The phe- 
nomena of corporeal and animate life, especially the 
circulation of the blood and the activity of the senses, 
Diogenes endeavoured not without ingenuity to explain 
by means of his theory. He agreed with the ancient 
lonians and with Heracleitus in maintaining an infinite 
series of successive worlds. 

B. THE PYTHAGOREANS, 

§ 14. Pythagoras and his School, 

The history of Pythagoras was very early overgrown 
with many unhistorical legends and conjectures, and 
became so more and more as it was handed down by 
successive traditions. His doctrine also, especially 
after the rise of the Neo-Pythagorean school, and the 
extensive forgeries of Pythagorean writings which 
prevailed there, has been so mixed up with later ele- 
ments that it requires the most careful criticism to 
distinguish the unhistorical constituents in the accounts 
preserved. As far as the history of the Pythagorean 
school and its founder is concerned,^ a higher degree of 
certainty can only be attained in regard to a few main 
points, and as to their doctrines only for such portions 
as we can learn from the genuine fragments of Philo- 
laus,^ the utterances of Aristotle, and those statements 

* On the Greek biographies (1819). When I had proved that 

of Pythagoras known to us, cf. a part of them were forge- 

p. 9, 12 f . ries, Schaarschmidt {Die angehl. 

2 All the fragments of Philo- SchriftsteHerei d. Philol. 186 !:> 

laus have been edited by Boeckh, attempted to prove the same of 

Philolaos der Pytliagor. Lehren all. Repeated examination only 



46 PRE-SOCltATlC PmLOSOPHY. CI 14 

of the later doxograpliers which we are justified in 
referring to Theophrastus.* 

Pythagoras, the son of Mnesarchus, was bom in 
Samos, whither his ancestors, who were Tyrrhenian 
Pelagians, had migrated from Phlius. From the in- 
exact statements in respect to the time when he lived, 
which are often contradictory in particular details, this 
much only can be accepted as probable, that he was 
born about 580-570 B.C., came to Italy about 540- 
530 B.C., and died towards the end of the sixth or 
soon after the beginning of the fifth century. Even 
Heracleitus calls him the most learned man of his 
time,^ but how and where he gained his knowledge we 
do not know. The statements of later writers con- 
cerning his travels and the culture acquired in the 
course of them in the countries of the South and East, 
by reason of the untrustworthiness of the authorities, 
lateness of the accounts, and the suspicious circum- 
stances (mentioned supra, p. 19) under which they 
appeared, cannot be regarded as traditions based upon 
historical recollection, but only as conjectures to which 

proves to me that the fragments authorities. Roth's uncritical and 

from the treatise irepl t^/vxris are romancing Gcsck. vns. ahendldii- 

not genuine, and that the rest dischen. Philosophies vol. ii. 

of the fragments, which are in (1858), can only be used with 

part confirmed by Aristotle, are the greatest care, 

genuine. GL Prc-Socratic Philo- '" Fr. 17. Bj^w; in Diogenes, 

«ry;//?/, 318 wojfd 2, 392 ff,; 446 ff. viii. 6. TlveaySo-qs Mvrjadpxoi^ 

* Among the later accounts l<Tropiy]v f)(rKT](ri avOpJoircav ixa.\i(Tra 

of the Pythagorean philosophy irdvroiv koL iKhe^dixeuos ravras ras 

we may mention, besides well- cvyypa<bas (to what treatises 

known and more comprehensive this refers we do not know) 

works, Chaignet's PytluKjore et eiroiriae eavrov cro(p{T)v iroKui^aOiriP 

la ])liil. i>yth. (2 vols. 1873) as a KaKorexfivv. Cf. Herod, iv. 95. 

careful book, though giving too 'EAAtj^wj/ ov tw aaQevioTdrc^ ao- 

muiih weight to untrustworthy <piaT^ llvOaySpiy 



§14] prtMAGOnAS. 47 

the doctrine of transmigration and some Orphic- 
Pythagorean usages especially gave rise. Even as to 
the presence of Pythagoras in Egypt, to which no 
internal improbability is opposed, nothing is known 
according to all appearance in the older tradition. 
The earliest evidence for it is an oration of Isocrates 
which does not even lay claim to historical credibility 
('Busir.' 11, 28, cf. 12, 33); Herodotus (ii. 81, 123, 
cf. c. 49, 53) seems to be quite unacquainted with any 
sojourn of Pythagoras in Egypt; and by the 'philosophy' 
which he transplanted thence to Greece even Isocrates 
doubtless means not so much any scientific doctrines 
as his whole reformatory procedure. In regard to 
Plato and Aristotle it is (vide sup, p. 21) very im- 
probable that they derived so influential a system as 
the Pythagorean from Egypt. The statement that 
Pherecydes was his instructor (attested from the middle 
of the fourth century rtp. Diog. i. 118, 119, and others) 
is more trustworthy, but also not certain ; and though 
the assertion that he was a disciple of Anaximander 
[ap, Porph. * Vit. Pyth.' 2,11) seems to rest on a mere 
conjecture, it is probable (vide swp. p. 41) that the 
astronomical theory of Anaximander influenced that of 
Pythagoras. Having begun his activity in his home 
as it appears, he found its chief sphere in Lower Italy 
(vide sup,). He settled in Crotona and established an 
association there which found numerous adherents 
among the Italian and Sicilian Greeks. The later 
legend describes his position in these regions as that 
of a prophet and worker of miracles, his school as a 
society of ascetics living under a strict rule and having 



48 PItE-SOCItATIC PHILOSOPHY, [§ U 

their goods in common, abstaining from flesh diet, 
beans, and woollen clothing, and sworn to inviolable 
secrecy with regard to their order. From an historical 
point of view the Pythagorean society appears primarily 
as a form of the mysteries then in vogue ; the orgies 
mentioned by Herodotus (ii. 81) form its centre, the 
doctrine of the transmigration of souls mentioned by 
Xenophanes {ap, Diog. vi. 36) is its leading dogma. 
From the initiated purity of life was demanded 
(irvOayopsios rpoiros tov ^lov, Plato, ^ Eep.' x. 600 B), 
which enjoined on them however, according to the 
best testimonies, only a few abstinences, and these not 
of an oppressive nature. The Pythagorean society was 
distinguished from all kindred phenomena by the 
ethical and reformatory character which was here given 
to the mystic dogma and to the cultus of Pythagoras, 
and the endeavour to educate its members, in harmony 
with the Doric customs and view of life, to bodily and 
mental soundness, to morality and self-control. With 
this endeavour was combined not only the cultivation 
of many arts and crafts, of gymnastic, music, and 
medicine, but also scientific activity, which was prac- 
tised within the society after the example of its founder, 
and participation in which, apart from the mysteries of 
the school, was probably seldom attained by any except 
the members. The mathematical sciences until the 
beginning of the fourth century had their chief seat in 
the Pythagorean school : with them was connected that 
doctrine of nature which formed the essential content 
of the Pythagorean system of philosophy. That an 
ethical reform like that attempted by Pythagoras must 
of necessity become a political reform was inevitable 



§14] PTTRAOORAS, 49 

among the Greeks of that period ; in their politics the 
Pythagoreans, in accordance with the whole spirit of 
their doctrine, were upholders of the Dorian aristocratic 
institutions, which had for their end the strict subordi- 
nation of the individual to the whole, and they governed 
by their influence many of the cities of Magna Grsecia 
in this spirit. Meanwhile this political attitude of the 
Pythagorean society gave occasion to frequent attacks 
upon it, which determined Pythagoras himself to re- 
move from Crotona to Metapontum, where he died. 
After many years of irritation, the burning of the 
Pythagorean meeting-place in Crotona, probably about 
440-430 B.C., gave the signal for a persecution that 
extended itself over the whole of Lower Italy, in which 
many of the Pythagoreans lost their lives, and the 
remainder were dispersed. Among these fugitives, 
through whom middle Greece first became acquainted 
with Pythagoreanism, were Philolaus (sujp, p. 45 note 2) 
and Lysis, the teacher of Epaminondas, who both lived 
in Thebes. Eurytus was a disciple of the former, and 
his scholars are mentioned by Aristoxenus as the last 
Pythagoreans. About the beginning of the fourth 
century we meet with Cleinias in Tarentum, and soon 
afterwards with the famous Archytas, through whom 
Pythagoreanism once more attained the leadership of 
a great community ; soon after his time the Pytha- 
gorean science, even in Italy, appears to have been 
extinguished or to have sunk into a state of insig- 
nificance, while the Pythagorean mysteries, on the 
contrary, not only maintained themselves but even 
spread and increased. 



60 TRE-SOCEATIC PHILOSOFHY. [§15 

§ 15. The Pythagorean System: Number^ and 
the Elements of Number, 

As the practical endeavours of Pythagoras had for 
their object the harnionious and orderly shaping of 
human life, so the theory of the world which is connected 
with them, and the leading ideas of which no doubt 
originated with Pythagoras, kept mainly in view that 
order and harmony through which the totality of things 
is combined into a beautiful whole, a cosmos ; and 
which is chiefly perceptible to us in harmony of tones, 
and in the regular motion of the heavenly bodies. 
The reason of this, as the Pythagoreans as mathema- 
ticians remark, is that everything in the world is ordered 
according to numerical relations ; number, according to 
Philolaus (ap. Stob. 'Ecl.'i. 8), is that which makes the 
hidden cognisable, rules divine things (the cosmos), 
and the works of men, music, and handicraft, and 
allows no falsehood. All is so far formed according to 
number.^ But to their unpractised realistic thought 
this proposition is immediately converted into another 
— ^namely, that number is the essence of things, that 
all is number, and consists of number ; and to cancel 
the obscurity which herein lies, and to ascribe to the 
Pythagoreans a definite distinction between numbers 
and things ordered according to numerical relations, 
would be to mistake the peculiar character of their 
whole point of view. 

Numbers are some of them odd and some even, 
and individual numbers are also composed of these 

' Arist. Metapht i. 6, 987 b. 11, fufxiiaei rh 6vTa cpaah- flvai tuv apiOfiuPt 



§16] THE PYTHAQOREAN SYSTEM. 61 

constituents. Uneven numbers are those which set a 
limit to bi-partition ; the even are those which do not ; 
the former are limited, the latter unlimited. From 
this the Pythagoreans concluded that the odd and 
even, or, as it is more generally expressed, the limiting ^ 
and the unlimited, are the fundamental constituents of 
numbers and of all things (the Trpdy/jLara If a)v avvsa-Ta 
6 /eocTfios, Philol.). And as the limited was held by the 
Greeks to be more perfect than the unlimited and form- 
less, and the odd number more lucky than the even, they 
connected therewith the assertion that the opposition 
of the limited and unlimited, of the better and the 
worse, runs through everything, and a table of ten 
opposites was drawn up (no doubt first by later 
members, sue) as Philolaus), which was as follows: — 1. 
limited and unlimited ; 2. odd and even ; 3. one and 
many ; 4. right and left ; 5. masculine and feminine ; 
6. rest and motion ; 7. straight and crooked; 8. light 
and darkness; 9. good and evil; 10. square and ob- 
long. 

On account of this opposition in the primary con- 
stituents of things, a principle was necessary to unite 
the opposites ; this principle is harmony, as * unity of 
the manifold,' and * agreement of the discordant.' 
Since therefore all is called number, it may also be 
said that all is harmony ; but, owing to the obscurity 
of the school in co-ordinating the particular and the 
universal, the symbol and the conception designated 
by it, no attempt is made to discriminate not only 

• Called by Philol. (F?'. i.) npatvov : in Plato and Arist. we have 



62 PRE-SOCItATIC PHILOSOPHY, [§ 15 

harmony in the cosmic sense from musical harmony, 
but musical harmony from the octave, which was also 
called ' Harmony.' 

§ 16. The Pythagorean Physics, 

In applying their doctrine of numbers to given 
phenomena, the procedure of the Pythagoreans was 
for the most part very arbitrary aud unmethodical. 
When they found a number or a numerical relation in 
anything, they explained it as the essence of the thing ; 
thus, not unfrequently the same object was designated 
by dififerent numbers, and still more commonly the 
same number was used for the most various objects, 
and these consequently, no doubt, were placed in rela- 
tion one with another (e.g. the Kaipos^ and the sun), 
But a more methodical development of the doctrine of 
numbers was attempted when the various classes of 
things were arranged according to numbers, and their 
qualities were explained by numbers. The funda- 
mental scheme of numbers is itself the decadal system ; 
each of the first ten figures has its own power and 
significance. Among these the decad is pre-eminent 
as the perfect all-embracing number; next to it the 
potential ten, the Tetractys with which the well-known 
form of oath was connected. On numerical relations, 
as the Pythagoreans (and, it is said, their founder) first 
discovered, the acuteness and concord of tones are 
founded; the relation of these tones, determined by 
the length of the vibrating strings, and computed 
according to the diatonic division of the heptachori 
(later, octachord), is thus given by Philolaus (op. Stob. 



§ 16] THE PYTHAGOREAN PHYSICS. 63 

*Ecl.' i., 462): for the octave {dpfiovla, later Eih 
waorMv) 1:2; for the fifth (Si* o^slavy later Bca 
irsvTs) 2:3; for the fourth (avWa^d, later Scd 
Tscrcrdpcov) 3:4; for the tone 8 : 9. From numbers 
were derived geometrical forms (in which Grreek 
mathematics were accustomed to exhibit numerical 
relations); two was called the number of the line, 
three the number of the plane, four of the solid. 
Philolaus made the elementary nature of matter 
dependent on the form (of its smallest parts) ; for of 
the five regular solids he assigned the tetrahedron to 
fire, the octahedron to air, the icosahedron to water, 
the cube to the earth, the dodecahedron to the uni- 
verse (perhaps to the aether). The eternity of the 
world is attributed to Pythagoras only by later writers, 
in contradiction to Aristotle. The formation of the 
world began from the one, i.e, from the fire of the 
centre; and this fire attracted to itself and limited 
the nearest portions of the unlimited. In it lies the 
central point and union of the world, it is ' Hestia,' 
* the citadel of Zeus,' &c. Around this central fire the 
earth, together with the other heavenly bodies, moves ; 
and here for the first time the thought appears of 
explaining the daily motion of the heaven by a motion 
of the earth. But in order to preserve the perfect 
number ten for these heavenly bodies, the counter- 
earth is inserted between the earth and the central 
fire. This astronomical system, which can be proved 
to have been held by Philolaus, seems to have first pro- 
ceeded from the successors of Pythagoras ; the doctrine 
of the spheral harmony, which, starting from the popu- 



54 PBE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§ 1« 

lar conception, treats tlie seven planets as the sounding 
strings of the heavenly heptachord, is more ancient. 
The theory of a world-soul was attributed to the 
Pythagoreans in spurious writings of a Neo-Pytha* 
gorean origin ; but it is clear from what Aristotle say* 
that it was foreign to them. Nor do they seem to 
have instituted any more particular inquiries in regard 
to the human soul. Aristotle only states in regard to 
this subject that they held the solar corpuscles, or, 
also, that which moves them, to be souls (' De An.' i. 2, 
404 a. 16) ; in ' Metaph.' i. 5, 985 a. 30, he also enumer- 
ates under the category of things reduced by the 
Pythagoreans to number, soul and understanding 
{yovs)\ and thereby confirms the statement (Iambi. 
'Theol. Arith,' 6Q) that Philolaus, in connection with 
his derivation of the body {sup. p. 53), assigned the 
physical qualities to the number five, animation to six, 
intelligence {vovs\ health, and ' light ' to seven, and 
love, wisdom, and practical knowledge to eight. The 
soul is also described as harmony, perhaps likewise as 
the harmony of the body; and it may be true that 
Philolaus placed the seat and germ {dp')(a) of reanon 
in the head, that of the soul in the heart, that of 
growth and germination in the navel, that of seed 
and generation in the sexual parts. The further 
particulars handed down by tradition as belonging to 
the ancient Pythagoreans, but bearing a stronger 
resemblance to the Platonic psychology, are not to be 
considered authentic. 



§ 17] PYTHAGOREAN RELIGION AND ETHICS. 66 

§ 17. Religious and Ethical Doctrines of the 
Pythagoreans. 

Together with the scientific determinations of the 
Pythagorean system, a number of doctrines have been 
handed down to us as Pythagorean, which arose 
independently, and have been brought into very slight 
combination, or none at all, with those determinations. 
To these belong first of all the doctrine of the trans- 
migration of souls, taken by Pythagoras irom the 
Orphic mysteries {sup. p. 48), and the theory con- 
nected with it (mentioned by Eiidemus as Pythagorean) 
that after the expiration of the Grreat Year (probably 
reckoned at 10,000 years) the previous course of the 
world down to the smallest details will be repeated. 
Likewise the belief in demons, by which are chiefly 
meant the souls waiting in Hades, or floating about 
in the air {vide p. 54). Finally some theological 
utterances attributed to Philolaus of which the one 
that recalls Xenophanes and his purer conception 
of God has no certain authority, and the rest bear no 
philosophical stamp. The ethical precepts of the 
Pythagoreans were combined, by means of the doctrine 
of future retribution, with the dogma of transmigra- 
tion of souls ; but this religious motive which is not 
exclusively Pythagorean, has nothing in common with 
a scientific foundation of ethics. Nor is such a founda- 
tion to be found in the practical rules and prescripts 
which have been handed down to us partly in symbo- 
lical maxims, and partly in other forms. A collection 
of such prescripts (dating at earliest from the third 



66 FRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY, [§ 17 

century before Christ) contains the so-called Golden 
Poem (a second, probably enlarged by his own addi- 
tions, was composed by Aristoxenus, vide swp. p. 10). 
The ethical principles of the Pythagoreans here find 
expression ; they require reverence for the gods, the 
government, and the laws, love of country, fidelity to 
friends, self-examination, temperance, and purity of 
life, but these demands are as little based on scientific 
formulae as in the proverbial maxims of the people and 
the poets. The only authenticated attempt to apply 
their theory of numbers to the sphere of ethics lies in 
the proposition that justice is an equal number multi- 
plied by an equal (or more accurately that it is one of 
the two first square numbers, four and nine), because 
it returns equal for equal. It may also be true that 
they described virtue as harmony, which, however, 
asserts nothing particular about it. Though the 
ethical tendency of the Pythagorean society was most 
valuable, therefore, from a practical point of view, the 
contribution of Pythagorean philosophy to the scien^ 
tific treatment of ethical questions was but meagre ; 
for the necessity of such a treatment, as distinguished 
from directly ethical and religious exhortation, was not 
yet experienced. 

§ 18. Pythagoreanism in Combination with other 
Doctrines, 

A combination of the Pythagorean doctrine with 
other standpoints produced the physical theories of 
Hippasus and Ecphantus. Hippasus of Metapontum 
Cabout 450 B.C.), who is generally described as a 



§18] HIPPASUS, ECPHANTUS, ETC. 67 

Pythagorean, seems to have combined the Pythagorean 
central fire with the first principle of Heracleitus ; for 
he declared fire to be the primitive matter of the world. 
Ecphantus (who lived, it would appear, about the 
beginning of the fourth century) united the doctrine 
of the Pythagoreans with that of Democritus ; instead 
of the units, which are the elements of number, he 
substituted corporeal atoms; but he assumed, like 
Anaxagoras, that a Divine spirit had formed the 
world. Previous to his time, Hicetas of Syracuse, with 
whom he herein agrees, had exchanged the movement 
of the earth around the central fire for a movement 
round its own axis. That, on the other hand, philo- 
sophers who did not belong to the Pythagorean society 
were affected by certain of its doctrines, is shown, not 
only by the examples of Parmenides and Empedocles, 
but also by that of Alcmseon, the Crotoniate physician 
(first half of the fifth century). When he remarks that 
human life moves between opposites, we are reminded 
of the corresponding doctrine of the Pythagoreans ; and 
there is a reminiscence of their doctrine of immortality 
in his saying that the soul is immortal, for it resemblef 
the imperishable heavenly natures, the stars being 
like them involved in perpetual motion. In the 
fragments also of the famous comic poet, Epicharmus 
(about 550-460 B.C.), we find, together with certain 
propositions of Xenophanes and Heracleitus, the 
Pythagorean doctrine of immortality ; but we are not 
justified in calling him, as some of the ancient philo- 
sophers do, a Pythagorean. 



68 PRE'SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§19 

C. THE ELEATICS. 

§ 19. Xenophanes, 
The founder of the Eleatic, as of the Pythagorean 
school, was an Ionian who had immigrated into Lower 
Italy. Born about 576-2 B.C. (01. 50, as Apollodorus 
probably said, instead of 01. 40, which was maintained 
by tradition), he travelled as a poet and rhapsodist for 
many years through the cities of Grreece, and finally 
settled atElea, where he died, having passed his ninety- 
second year (therefore in 480 B.C.). His * polymathy ' 
is spoken of even by Heracleitus ('Fr.' 16, ap, Diog. 
ix. 1); Theophrastus (ap, Diog. ix. 21) describes him 
as a disciple of Anaximander. His poems were on 
many and various subjects ; we are indebted for our 
knowledge of his philosophical theories to the frag- 
ments of a didactic poem {Trspl ^vasws ^), and the 
communications of Aristotle and Theophrastus {ap, 
Simpl. and others ; Diels, ' Doxogr.' 480 f.) which come 
from it ; on the other hand the supposed Aristotelian 
treatise, ' De Melisso, Xenophane, et Gorgia,' is neither 
a work of Aristotle or Theophrastus, nor a trustworthy 
account of the doctrine of Xenophanes. The starting- 
point of that doctrine seems to have been the bold 
criticism of the Grreek popular belief, by which Xeno- 
phanes assumes such an important place in the history 
of Eeligion. His irony and aversion are excited 
not only by the human form of the gods and the 

» Collected and edited by &c., 1845. Fragm. Phil. Gr. i. 
Karsten, Philosoph. Oriech. Pel. i. 101 ff. 
1835. Mullach, ifm<. i^diLTtf^w^y, 



§ 19] XEN0PHANE8, 69 

unworthy stories about them related by Homer and 
Hesiod ; he finds also that their plurality is incompatible 
with a purer conception of Deity. The Best, he says, 
can only be One ; none of the gods can be governed by 
another. As little can we suppose that the gods had a 
beginning, or wander about from one place to another. 
There is therefore only one God, ' neither comparable 
to mortals in shape, nor in thoughts,' ' all eye, all ear, 
all thought,' *who without trouble, by his thought, 
governs all things.' With Xenophanes, however, this 
Grod coincides with the world. When he looked around 
upon the universe, he declared the One (or asTheophras- 
tus, ajp, Simpl. ' Phys.' 22, 30, says : to %v tovto kol 
irav) to be the Deity (Arist. « Metaph.' i. 5, 986 b. 
20) ; that he was the first to bring forward the doctrine 
that all things are One, is known from Plato (' Soph.' 
242 D). This One Divine Being is eternal and un 
changeable ; whether limited, or unlimited, Xeno- 
phanes, according to the explicit testimony of Aristotle 
and Theophrastus, did not discuss ; when, therefore, in 
the treatise 'De Mel.' 3, 977 b. 3, it is expressly 
proved to be neither limited nor unlimited, the state- 
ment deserves no credence. It is more likely that he 
spoke in another connection of the infinity of the 
space of the air and of the depths of the earth, and, on 
the other hand, of the spherical shape of the heavens, 
without inquiring how the two ideas were compatible, 
and without referring these expressions to the Divine 
nature. That he declared the world to be underived 
and imperishable is also credible ; in saying this^ 
however, he can only have had its material substance 



eO PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY, [§19 

in view, for in regard to the universe he did not assert 
it; the earth, according to his theory, formed itself 
from the sea, as he proved from the petrifactions he 
had observed, and would again partially sink into it ; 
the snn and the stars he supposed to be biorning masses 
of vapour, which are formed anew every day. With 
the earth the human race will also be destroyed, and 
at its new construction will be again created (from it, 
vide sup, p. 41). When the later sceptics reckoned 
Xenophanes among themselves, they were able to 
appeal in support of this assertion to expressions of his 
which deplore the uncertainty and limitation of human 
knowledge ; but the dogmatic tenor of his other doc- 
trines shows, notwithstanding, how far he was from 
scepticism on principle. 

§ 20. Parmenides. 

If Xenophanes maintained the unity and eternity of 
God and the universe, Parmenides ascribed the same 
qualities to all reality, as the inevitable inference from 
that conception; and plurality and variability of 
things were consequently explained as mere appear- 
ance. This great thinker, who was so revered in 
antiquity, and especially by Plato, according to his 
representation in the ' Parmenides,' cannot have been 
born earlier than 520-616 B.C. This statement, how- 
ever, probably belongs to the anachronisms of which 
Plato allows himself so many on artistic grounds ; and 
Diogenes (ix. 23) is nearer the truth when (doubtless 
following Apollodorus) he places his most flourishing 
period (a/c/i?}, usually assigned to a man's fortieth year), 



§20] PAUMENILB8, 61 

in 01. 69, and therefore his birth in 01. 59 (544-0 B.C.). 

Two Pythagoreans influenced his education, and he 
himself is said to have led a Pythagorean life, but in 
his philosophical theories he is allied to Xenophanes.^ 
The conception from which he starts is that of the 
existent in its opposition to the non-existent ; but by 
the existent he understands not the abstraction of pure 
being, but the ' full,' the mass that fills space, without 
any more precise definition. ' Only being is, non- 
being is not and cannot be thought ' {' Fr.' 33 fF. 43 f. M) 
this is the fundamental principle from which he derives 
all his determinations of being. Being cannot begin 
or cease to be, for it can neither come from non-being 
nor become non-being ; it never was, and never will 
he, but is undividedly present {yvv so-tcv ojhov irav %v 
^vvs^is). It is indivisible, for it is that which it is, 
everywhere equally, and there is nothing by which it 
could be divided. It is unmoved, complete in itself, 
everywhere self-identical, and may be compared with 
a well-rounded sphere, spreading itself equally from 
the centre to all sides. Thought, moreover, is not 
distinct from being, for it is thought of the existent. 
Only that knowledge therefore has truth which shows 
us in all things this one invariable being, and this is 
reason {Xofyos), The senses, on the other hand, which 
show us a multiplicity of things, origin, decay, and 
change, are the sources of all error.^ 

* The fragments of his poem Berl. 1864 ; Stein, in the Synib. 

irepi (pvcreus will be found in Philol. Bonnens. Leipzig, 1864 ff. 

Karsten, Philosoph. Gr. Bel. 1. 2 ; p. 763 ff. 

Mullach, in the works mentioned, ^ On the other hand, I cannot 

p. 68 J Th. Vatke, Pa/rm. Boctrina, agree with the view of Bernaya 



62 PRE'SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY, [§20 

Parmenides nevertheless undertook to show, in 
the second part of his poem, how the world was to be 
explained from the standpoint of the ordinary mode 
of presentation. In truth, only being exists; the 
opinion of man places non-being beside it, and thus 
explains all things out of two elements, of which one 
corresponds to being, the other to non-being : namely, 
light or fire {(j)\oyos aWipiov Trvp), and ^ night ' or the 
dark, the heavy and the cold, which Parmenides also 
called earth. According to Theophrastus, he also 
described the former as the active principle, and the 
latter as the passive principle; placing, however, 
beside them the mythic form of the goddess who guides 
all things. He undertakes to show how upon these 
presuppositions we can explain to ourselves the origin 
and constitution of the world ; but very few of these 
explanations have come down to us. He describes the 
universe as composed of the earth and the various 
spheres grouped around it, and spanned by the stead- 
fast arch of heaven. Of these spheres some are 
light, some dark, and some mixed. He seems to have 
supposed that men originated from terrestrial slime. 
Their thoughts and perceptions are regulated accord- 
ing to the material constituents of the body ; each of 
the two elements recognises that which is akin to it, 
the character of the presentations depends on which 
predominates ; they have therefore greater truth when 
the warm element is in the ascendant. 

and others that Parmenides was and non-being as the same. Cf. 
thinking of Heracleitus in his cri- Pre-Sooratio Philosophy ^ ii. 109. 
ticism of those who regard being 



§21 J ZENO AND MELISSUS, 68 

§ 21. Zeno and Melissua. 

A third generation of Eleatic philosophers is re- 
presented by Zeno and Melissus. Zeno of Elea, whose 
heroic death in withstanding a tyrant is so celebrated, 
was the favourite disciple of Parmenides, and according 
to Plato (* Parm.' 127 B), twenty-five years his junior. 
In a prose treatise written in his earlier life, he defended 
the doctrine of Parmenides in an indirect manner, by 
refuting the ordinary mode of presentation with such 
skill that Aristotle (according to Diog. viii. 57, ix. 25), 
calls him the inventor of Dialectic. The arguments of 
Zenp, as far as we are acquainted with them, are directed 
partly against the theory of a plurality of things, 
and partly against motion. The argument against 
multiplicity is as follows: (1) If being were many, it 
must be infinitely small as well as infinitely great : — 
infinitely small, because the units of which it is com- 
posed must be indivisible, and consequently without 
magnitude ; infinitely great, because each of its parts 
must have a part before it, from which it is separated, 
this in like manner must be preceded by another part, 
and so ad infinitum., (2) Again, were being many, it 
must in respect to number be limited as well as un- 
limited: limited because there would be no more 
things than there are ; unlimited, because in order to 
be many, between two things there must in every 
case be a third, and this third thing must have another 
between itself and each of the other two ; and so on 
for ever. (3) Since all things exist in a space, space 
itself must be in a space, and the space in which it ia 



«4 PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§21 

must be so, and so on ad infinitum. (4) Finally it 
is maintained that if the shaking out of a bushel of 
corn produces a sound, each grain and each part of a 
grain must do so. But the four arguments against 
motion are still more famous and important (Arist. 
* Phys.' vi. 9, and his commentators). The first is 
this : — In order to have traversed a certain distance, a 
body must first have accomplished half of that distance, 
and in order to have arrived at the half, it must first 
have reached the half of that half, and so forth. 
That is, it must in a limited time have gone through 
spaces unlimited in number. (2) Another application 
of the same argument (the so-called Achilles). 
Achilles cannot overtake the tortoise, if it has at all 
got the start of him; for while he arrives at the 
standpoint A of the tortoise, the tortoise has arrived 
at a second, b ; when he reaches B, the tortoise has 
arrived at c, and so on, (3) The flying arrow is at 
rest, for it is at each moment only in one and the 
same space ; it rests, therefore, in every moment of its 
flight, and consequently also during the whole time of 
it. (4) Equal spaces must be traversed in equal time, 
if the speed be equal. But a body in motion passes 
another body twice as fast if the latter is moving 
towards it with equal speed as if that other were at 
rest. Therefore the laws of motion are here in 
opposition to the facts. At a later period, these 
arguments were used in the interests of scepticism; 
Zeno himself only designed them to support the 
propositions of Parmenides, but from the manner in 
which he pursued this end he gave a powerful impulse 



§21] ZENO AND MELISSUS. 65 

not only to the development of Dialectic, but also to the 
discussion of the problems involved in the conceptions 
of space, time, and motion. 

Melissus of Samos, the same who as navarch in 
442 B.C. conquered the Athenian fleet, set forth in his 
treatise irspl ^vcrews * Parmenides' doctrine of Being. 
In this, while defending the doctrine against the 
' Physicists,' among whom were included, as it would 
seem, Empedocles and Leucippus, he sought at the same 
time points of contact with it even in them. He proved 
the eternity and imperishableness of Being with the 
same arguments as Parmenides ; but differed from him 
in drawing from thence the inadmissible conclusion that 
Being must also be unlimited in space. He sought, 
however, to establish this doctrine by denying the exist- 
ence of empty space; and further applied this denial 
of the void to oppose the theory of a plurality of things. 
For he steadily maintained, with Parmenides, thje 
unity and indivisibility of Being. With him also he 
denied all change and motion, and in consequence (in 
opposition to Empedocles) all division and mixture. 
He also applied the argument that the void is incon- 
ceivable against motion in space; for without the 
void neither motion nor rarefaction and condensation 
would be possible. Lastly, with Parmenides, he re- 
jected the evidence of the senses, charging them with 
the contradiction that things often show themselves 
changed in the sequel, which would be impossible 

* The fragments in Ionic i. 259 £f., and previously in hig 
prose in Mullach, Fragm. Phil, edition of Arist. De Melisso. 



66 PRE'SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§ 21 

if they were really so constituted as they at first 
represented themselves to us. 

II. The Physicists of the Fifth Century B,C. 

§ 22. Heradeitus, 
Heracleitus was an Ephesian of noble family, a 
contemporary of Parmenides (concerning his relation 
to him, vide supra, p. 61 note 2); his death may be 
placed about 475 B.C., his birth, if he was really sixty 
years old when he died (Diog. viii. 52), in 535 B.C. 
Of an earnest and thoughtful turn of mind, full of 
contempt for the doings and opinions of men, and not 
satisfied even with the most honoured sages of his 
time and nation, he went his own way in pursuing his 
inqnivies(^sSL^7](rdfir]v s/jls(ovt6v,'¥y,^ 80 ; sh ifiol fJLvpioiy 
' Fr.' 113). The results he laid down in his treatise 
without particular demonstration, in pregnant, pic- 
turesque sentences, which were often oracular and 
laconic to the point of obscurity. This mode of ex- 
position gained him the surname of the Obscure (first 
found in Ps. Arist. ' De Mundo,' c. 5). To himself it 
seemed to correspond with the dignity of the subject- 
matter, and to us it gives a true representation of his 
thought, moving as it did more in intuitions than in 
conceptions, and directed rather to the combination 
than the discrimination of the manifold.^ 

* His fragments are collected Hcralileiios d. Bimhcln, 1858, 2 

and treated, of in monog-raphs Bde. ; Schuster, IlemMit, 1873 ; 

by Schleiermacher, llcrdkleitos Mullach, i'Vfl'///;?. P/^/Z., i. 310 ff. ; 

(1807); {Werke, z. I'hil., ii. Bywater, Hcracliti ReliquicB, 

1-146) ; Lassaile, Die Philos. Oxford, 1877 (I quote from this 



§22] HERACLEITUS, 67 

Like Xenoplianes and Parmenides, Heracleitus 
starts from the consideration of nature, and he too 
regards it as a uniform whole, which as such neither 
arose nor passes away. But while they fix their atten- 
tion so exclusively on the continuance of substance in 
the uQiverse that the plurality and change of pheno- 
mena are altogether cancelled in a mere appearance, 
Heracleitus, on the contrary, is so profoundly impressed 
with the ceaseless change of things, the transitoriness 
of all the particular, that he sees in it the most 
universal law of the world, and can only regard the 
cosmos as being involved in continual change, and 
transposed into perpetually new shapes. All things are 
in constant flux, nothing has permanence : ^ ' he cannot 
descend twice into the same stream' ('Fr.'41, 81); 
everything is continually passing over into some thing 
else, and this proves that it is one nature which assumes 
the most opposite forms, and pervades the most various 
conditions, that ' All comes from One, and One from All ' 
(Fr. 59) ; ' Grod is day and night, summer and winter, 
war and peace, satiety and hunger ' (' Fr.' 36). But 
this essential nature, according to Heracleitus, is fire. 
' This world, the One for All, neither one of the Grods nor 
of the human race has made ; but it ever was, and is, 
and shall be, an eternally living fire ' (* Fr.' 20). The 
foundation of this theory ultimately lies in the fact 
that fire appears to the philosopher to be the substance 

edition). Further the reader may ' iravra p^lv, ehai dh irayCcas 

compare Bernays, Heraclitea, ovBiv. Arist. De Ccelo, iii. i. 298 

1848; Id. Ehein. Mus., N. F. vii. b. 29. t^ ovTa Uvai re irdvTa Koi 

90 ff., ix. 241 ff. -; Teichmiiller, yueVeij/ cu^eV. . . irdvra x^P^'^ «^«^ 

Nevs Studien zur Gesch. der oiidkv fievei. Plato, Crat. iOl 

BegHffe, i. H., 1876. D, 402 A. 



68 PRE'SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY, [§22 

which least of all has a permanent consistency or allows 
it in another ; and he consequently understood by his 
fire not merely flame, but warmth in general ; for which 
reason it is also designated as vapour {dvaOvfioaais) 
or breath (-v/^fx*?). Things arise from fire through its 
transmutation into other substances, and in the same 
way they return to it again. ' All is exchanged for 
fire, and fire for all, as wares for gold, and gold for 
wares ' (*Fr.' 22). But as this process of transforma- 
tion never stands still, it never produces anything perma- 
nent; everything is conceived as in perpetual transition 
from one state into its opposite, and therefore has the 
contradictions, between which it moves, contemporane- 
ously present in itself. Strife (7r6\s/j,os) is the rule 
of the world {^ALkt}), the father and king of all things 
(* Fr.' 62, 44). ' That which strives against another 
supports itself {clvtI^ovv avfxipspov, * Fr.' 46). 'That 
which separates, comes together with itself ' (* Fr.' 45, 
according to Plato, ' Sophist.' 242 D). ' The harmony 
of the world rests upon opposite tension, like that of 
the lyre and the bow ' (Trakivrovos, others read TrdXlv- 
rpoTTOS, dpfjbOVLT) Koa/ubov OKcoaiTSp Xvprjs koI to^ov, 
* Fr.' 56), Heracleitus spoke, therefore, of Zeus- 
Polemos, and censured Homer for disparaging Discord. 
But not less strongly did he maintain that the ' hidden 
harmony' of nature ever reproduces concord from 
oppositions, and that the divine law (^''Kr]),ia,te, wisdom 
(yvco/jLTj), the universal reason {\6jos), Zeus, or the 
Deity, rules all things, the primitive essence recom- 
poses itself anew in all things according to fixed laws, 
and again retires from them. 



§ 22] HERACLEITU8, 69 

In its transmutation the primitive essence passes 
through three fundamental forms : out of fire comes 
water, from water, earth; and in the opposite direc- 
tion from earth comes water, and from water, fire. The 
former is the way downwards, the latter the way 
upwards, and that both lie through the same stages 
is asserted in the sentence (' Fr.' 69), ' the way upwards 
and the way downwards is one.' All things are con- 
tinually subject to this change, but they appear to 
remain the same so long as the same number of sub- 
stances of a particular kind flows into them from the 
one side as they give off on the other. A prominent 
example of this change is afforded by Heracleitus's 
proverbial opinion that the sun is new every day, for 
the fire collected in the boat of the sun is extinguished 
in the evening and forms itself afresh during the night 
from the vapours of the sea. Heracleitus (in harmony 
with Anaximander and Anaximenes) applies the same 
point of view to the universe. As the world arose from 
the primitive fire, so when the cosmical year has run 
its course it will return to primitive fire again, by 
means of conflagration, in order to be again recon- 
stituted from the same substance after a fixed time ; 
and thus the history of the world is to move, in end- 
less alternation, between the state of divided being 
{'X^pyjo'/jioavvi]), and that of the union of all things in 
the primitive fire {Kopos). When Schleiermacher, 
Hegel, and Lassalle deny that Heracleitus held this 
doctrine, their opinion contradicts not only the unani- 
mous testimony of the ancients since Aristotle, but 
likewise the utterances of Heracleitus himself, nor can 



70 PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§22 

it be supported by the passage in Plato, ' Soph.' 242 
Cf. 

The soul of man is a part of this divine fire ; the 
purer this fire, the more perfect is the soul : ' the 
dry soul is the wisest and best * (' Fr.' 74), As, how- 
ever, the soul-fire is subject like all else to perpetual 
transmutation, it must be supplied by the senses and 
the breath from the light and the air without us. 
That it should not be extinguished at the departure 
of the soul from the body, but sliould continue in an 
individual existence, and that Heracleitus should ac- 
cordingly maintain like the Orphics that the souls 
passed from this life to a higher — for all this, his 
physical theory affords no justification. On the other 
hand it is quite consistent that the philosopher who, in 
the change of individual things, regards nothing but the 
universal law as permanent, should only ascribe value to 
rational knowledge, directed to the common element 
('Fr.' 91), should declare eyes and ears to be 'bad 
witnesses ' (' Fr.' 4), and should set up for practical con- 
duct the principle that all human laws sustain them- 
selves by One, the Divine (' Fr.' 91); this, therefore. 
man must follow, but ' he must extinguish arrogance like 
a conflagration ' (' Fr.' 103). From trust in the divine 
order of the world arises that contentment (svapsaTri- 
aos) which Heracleitus is said to have declared to 
be the highest good; the happiness of man, he is 
convinced, depends upon himself: ^6os avOpwirco 
halpLwv (* Fr.' 121). The well-being of the common- 
wealth depends upon the dominion of law : ' the 
people must fight for law as for its walls ' (* Fr.' 100) ; 



§22] HERACLEITU8. 71 

but this also is law, says the aristocratic philosopher, 
to follow the counsel of an individual (' Fr.' 110) ; and 
against the democracy which had banished his friend 
Hermodorus he launches the most violent censure. 
With the same rude independence he opposed him- 
self to the religious opinions and usages of his people, 
attacking with sharp language not only the Dionysiac 
orgies, but also the worship of statues and bloody 
sacrifices. 

The school of Heracleitus not only maintained 
itself till the beginning of the fourth century in his 
own country, but also found encouragement in Athens ; 
Cratylus, the teacher of Plato, belonged to it. But 
these later Heracleiteans, and Cratylus in particular, 
had become so unmethodical and fanatical in their 
procedure, and had fallen into such extravagances, that 
Plato and Aristotle both use very contemptuous 
language respecting them, 

§ 23. Empedocles. 

Empedocles of Agrigentum was bom about 495-0 
B.C., and died at the age of sixty, about 435-0 B.C. By 
his impassioned eloquence and practical energy, he, like 
his father Meton, long maintained himself at the head 
of the Agrigentine democracy ; but he attached still 
more importance to the functions of religious teacher, 
prophet, physician, and worker of miracles, which his 
remarkable personality, resembling that of Pythagoras, 
enabled him to exercise. Concerning his death many 
romantic stories, some deifying him, others depreciatory, 
early came into circulation ; the most probable account 



72 PRB^SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§28 

is that having finally lost the popular favour, he died 
an exile in the Peloponnesus. Of the writings which 
bear his name, only the two didactic poems, the ^va-iKa 
and the Kadap/juol, can with certainty be ascribed to 
him ; numerous fragments of both have been preserved.* 
In his mystic theology, Empedocles is allied with 
the Orphic-Pythagorean doctrines ; in his physics, on 
the other hand, he seeks a middle course between 
Parmenides (whose disciple he is called by Alcida- 
mas, ap. Diog. viii. 56) and the theory of the universe 
which Parmenides opposed. With Parmenides, he 
denies that origin and decay in the strict sense are 
thinkable ; but he cannot resolve on that account to 
oppose the plurality of things, their becoming and 
variability ; and so, perhaps following the example of 
Leucippus, he adopts the expedient of reducing becom- 
ing to a combination, decay to a separation, and change 
to the partial separation and combination, of underived 
imperishable and invariable substances. These sub- 
stances, however, he conceives as qualitatively distinct 
from each other, and quantitatively divisible ; not as 
atoms, but as elements. He is the first philosopher who 
introduced this conception of elements ; the term indeed 
is of later origin ; Empedocles calls them the ' roots of 
all.' Also the fourfold number of the elements, fire, air, 
water, earth, originates with Empedocles. Neither of 
these four substances can pass over into another, or 
combine with another to form a third ; all mixture of 



* Collected and explained by (183S) ; Stein, JEmuedoclis Fragm 
StvLTz, Bmpedooles (1805); Kar- l\852); Uullach,^ Fragm. PAH. i 
eten, Emjyedoolis Carm. Rel. 13 ff. 



§ 28] BMPEBOCLEIS, 73 

substances consists in small particles of them being 
mechanically assembled together; and the influence, 
which substantially separated bodies exert on each 
other, is brought about by small particles (^airoppoai) of 
one becoming detached and entering into the pores of the 
other; where the pores and effluences of two bodies 
correspond to one another, they attract each other, as 
in the case of the magnet and iron. In order, however, 
that the substances may come together or separate, 
moving forces must also be present, and of these there 
must be two — a combining and a separating force. 
Empedocles calls the former Love {(jyiXorij^, aropyrj), 
or also Harmony, and the latter Hate {vsIko9, kotos). 
But these forces do not always operate in the same 
manner. As Heracleitus represents the world as 
periodically coming forth from the primitive fire and 
again returning to it, so Empedocles says that the 
elements are in endless alternation, now brought to- 
gether into unity by love, and now separated by hate. 
In the former of these conditions, as a perfect mingling 
of all substances, the world forms the globe-shaped 
sphere, which is described as a blessed god because all 
hate is banished from it. The opposite counterpart of 
this is the entire separation of the elements. Between 
these extremes lie those conditions of the world in 
which individual natures arise and decay. In the 
formation of the present world love first produced a 
whirling motion in the midst of the substances separated 
by hate, and these were gradually drawn into it ; from 
this mixture, through the rotatory movement, air or 
sether first separated itself, and thence was formed the 



74 PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§23 

arch of the heavens ; next fire, which occupied the 
place immediately below the sether ; from the earth 
water was pressed out by the force of the rotation, and 
from the evaporation of the water came once more air, 
^.e. the lower atmosphere. The sky consists of two 
halves, one of fire, the other dark, with masses of fire 
sprinkled in it ; the former is the heaven of the day- 
time, the latter of the night. The san, Empedocles, 
like the Pythagoreans, held to be a mirror which 
collects and throws back the rays of the heavenly fire, 
as the moon those of the sun. The swiftness of the 
rotation occasions the earth and the whole universe to 
remain in their place. 

From the earth, according to Empedocles, plants and 
animals were produced ; but as the union of substances 
by love only came about by degrees, so in the origina- 
tion of living creatures he supposed that a gradual 
progress led to more perfect results. First separate 
masses were thrown up from the earth, then these 
united together as it chanced and produced strange 
and monstrous forms ; similarly when the present 
animals and human beings arose, they were at first 
shapeless lumps which only received their organism in 
course of time. That Empedocles, on the contrary, 
explained the construction of organisms according to 
design by the theory, that of the creations cf chance 
only those capable of life maintained themselves, is 
neither probable in itself, nor is it asserted by Ari- 
stotle (' Phys.' ii. 8).* He seems to have occupied him- 

• See my treatise, Ueher die Philol. und Hist. Abh. der BerL 
griechischen Vorgiinger Darwin's, Akad. 1878, s, 116 ff. 



§23] EMPEB0CLE8. 76 

self considerably with the subject of living creatures. 
Concerning their generation and development, the 
elementary composition of the bones and flesh, the 
process of breathing (which is effected partly through 
the skin) and similar phenomena, he set up con- 
jectures which were of their kind very ingenious. He 
tried to explain the activities of the senses by his 
doctrine of the pores and effluences : in regard to 
sight, he thought that emanations from the fire and 
water of the eye meet the light coming towards the 
eye. To explain the activity of thought, he brought 
forward the general principle that each element is 
recognised by the similar element in us * (as also 
desire is evoked by what is akin and aversion by what 
is opposed), and that therefore the quality of thought 
is regulated according to the constitution of the body 
and especially of the blood, which is the chief seat of 
thought. This materialism, however, does not deter 
him any more than Parmenides from placing sensible 
decidedly below rational knowledge. 

With this system of natural philosophy Empedocles 
made no attempt to reconcile scientifically his mystic 
doctrine (allied to that of the Orphics and Pytha- 
goreans) of the sinking down of souls into terrestrial 
existence, of their transmigration into the bodies of 
plants, animals, and men, and of the subsequent re- 
turn of the purified souls to the gods ; nor his 
prohibition of animal sacrifices and of animal food. 
He did not even try to explain away the contradiction 
between them, though it is evident that these doctrines 

* >o/'p /uer 7ckf) 70*01/ bir^irafjLiVy &0. Fragm, ed. Mull. v. 378. 



76 PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§ 23 

involve the conception that strife and opposition are 
the cause of all evil, and that unity and harmony are 
supremely blessed. Nor do we know whether and 
where room was left in the physics of Empedocles for 
the golden age to which a fragment (v. 417 M.) 
refers ; and if the philosophic poet (v. 389) has, like 
Xenophanes, set up a purer idea of Grod in opposition 
to the anthropomorphic presentation of divinities, it is 
equally hard to say where this idea could have found a 
place in his physical system or even how it could have 
been compatible with it. 

§ 24. The Atomistic School. 

The founder of the atomistic school was Leucippus, 
a contemporary of Anaxagoras and Empedocles, which 
is the nearest approximation we can make to his date. 
Theophrastus {ap. Simpl. ' Phys.' 28. 4) calls him a 
disciple of Parmenides, but does not know whether he 
came from Miletus or Elea. The writings from which 
Aristotle and Theophrastus took their accounts of his 
doctrines seem to have been subsequently found 
among those of Democritus.^ This renowned philo- 
sopher and student of nature, a citizen of Abdera, was, 
according to his own assertion (Diog. ix. 41), still young 
when Anaxagoras was already old {vso9 Kara irpzcr^v- 
TTjv *Ava^ay6pav) ; but that he was exactly forty years 
younger than Anaxagoras, and therefore born about 

* Hence we can explain why Jahrb. f. Phil. 1882, s. 741 ff.) 

Epicurus denied the existence of attempts to pr^ve tliat Epicurus 

Leucippus (Diog. x. 13). Wlien, was right, he is amply confuted 

hov/ever, Kdhde {Ueber Leuoijjp by Diels (Verliandl. der 35. Phi* 

uTid Democrity Verhandlungen der lologenvers. s. 96 ff.). 
34. Philologenversammlung, 1881. 



§24] THE ATOMISTIC SCHOOL. 77 

460 B.C., seems to be an unfounded assumption of Apol- 
lodorus. Aristotle (' Part. An/i. 1, 642 a. 26 ; * Metaph.' 
xiii. 4, 1078 b. 17) places him as a philosopher before 
Socrates. His passion for knowledge led him to Egypt 
and probably also to Babylonia, but whether his inter- 
course with Leucippus, whose disciple he was according 
to Aristotle and Theophrastus, is to be included in the 
five years he spent abroad (' Fr.' v. 6 Mull.) we do not 
know. He was acquainted also with other older and 
contemporary philosophers besides Leucippus, being 
himself the first of the savants and natural philo- 
sophers of his time. The year of his death is unknown; 
his age is variously given as ninety years, a hundred, 
and even more. Of his writings numerous fragments ^ 
have been preserved, but it is difficult, especially in 
regard to the moral sayings, to discriminate what is 
spurious. 

The Atomistic theory, in its essential constituents^ 
is to be regarded as the work of Leucippus, while its 
application to all parts of natural science appears to 
have been chiefly that of his disciple. Leucippus (as 
Aristotle says, *Gen. et Corr.' i. 8) was convinced, like 
Parmenides, of the impossibility of an absolute genesis 
and decay ; but he would not deny the plurality of 
things, motion, nor genesis and decay (i.e. of composite 
things) ; and since this, as Parmenides had shown, 
cannot be conceived without Non-Being, he main- 
tained that Non-Being exists as well as Being. But 
Being (as in Parmenides) is that which fills space, the 

* Collected by Mullach, Demoor, £ragm, 1843 ; Fragm Phil, i 
330 £E. 



78 I^RE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHT. [|24 

Full ; Non-Being is the Void. Leucippus and Demo- 
critus, therefore, declared the Plenum and the Void to 
be the primary constituents of all things ; but, in 
order to be able to explain phenomena in reference to 
them, they conceived the Plenum as divided into innu- 
merable atoms, which on account of their minuteness are 
not perceptible separately ; these are sej)arated from one 
another by the Void, but must themselves be indivi- 
sible because they completely fill their space and have 
no vacuum in them; for this reason they are called 
atoms {aTOfjLa) or also, ' thick bodies ' {yao-ra). These 
atoms are constituted precisely like the Being of Par- 
menides, if we imagine this as split up into innumer- 
able parts and placed in an unlimited empty space ; 
underived, imperishable, homogeneous throughout as to 
their substance, they are distinct from one another only 
by their form and magnitude, and are capable of no 
qualitative change but only of change of place. To 
them alone, therefore, we must refer the qualities and 
changes of things. As all atoms consist of the same 
matter, their weight must exactly correspond with their 
size ; consequently, if two compound bodies of similar 
magnitude have a different weight, the reason can 
only be that there are more empty spaces in the one 
than in the other. All derivation, or genesis, of the 
composite consists in the coming together of separate 
atoms ; and all decay in the separation of combined 
atoms ; and similarly with all kinds of change. All 
operation of things on each other is a mechanical oper- 
ation, through pressure and impact ; all influence from 
a distance (as between the magnet and iron, light and 



§24j th:e atomistic school. 79 

the eje) is effected by effluences. All properties of 
things depend upon the form, magnitude, position, and 
arrangement of their atoms ; the sensible qualities 
which we ascribe to them merely express the manner 
in which they affect our senses: voiitp yXv/cv, vofia 
iriKpoVy vojXfp Osp/jLov, vofitp 'y^rv')(^p6v, v6[i(p %/30t?7, STsfj 
hs cLTOfxa Koi Ksvov. (Dem. ' Fr. Phys.' 1.) 

On account of their weight, all the atoms from 
eternity move downwards in infinite space ; but, accord- 
ing to the atomists, the larger and therefore heavier 
atoms fall more quickly than the smaller and lighter, 
and strike against them ; thus the smaller are impelled 
upwards, and from the collision of these two motions, 
from the concussion and rebound of the atoms, a whirl- 
ing movement is produced. In consequence of this, 
on the one hand the homogeneous atoms are brought 
together, and on the other, through the entanglement 
of variously shaped atoms, complexes of atoms, or 
worlds, segregated and externally sundered, are formed. 
As motion has no beginning, and the mass of atoms 
and of empty space has no limits, there must always 
have been innumerable multitudes of such worlds 
existing under the most various conditions, and having 
the most various forms. Of these innumerable worlds 
our world is one. The conjectures of Democritus con- 
cerning its origin, the formation of the heavenly bodies 
in the air, their gradual drying up and ignition, &c., 
are in harmony with his general presuppositions. The 
earth is supposed by Leucippus and Democritus to be 
a round plate, floating on the air. The heavenly bodies, 
of which the two largest, the sun and moon, only 



80 phe-socbatic philosophy. [§21 

entered our universe after the earth had begun to be 
formed, before the inclination of the earth's axis, 
revolved laterally around the earth. In regard to the 
four elements, Democritus thought that fire consists of 
small smooth and round atoms, while in the other 
elements various kinds of atoms are mtermingled. 

Organic beings came forth from the terrestrial 
slime, and to these Democritus seems to have devoted 
special attention. He was, however, chiefly occupied 
with man ; and though the structure of the human 
body is an object of the highest admiration to him, 
he ascribes still greater value to the soul and spiritual 
life. The soul, indeed, he can only explain as some- 
thing corporeal : it consists of fine smooth and round 
atoms, and therefore of fire which is distributed 
through the whole body, and by the process of inhala- 
tion is hindered from escaping and is also replenished 
from the outer air ; but the particular activities of the 
soul have their seat in particular organs. After death, 
the soul-atoms are scattered. Nevertheless, the soul 
is the noblest and divine st element in man, and in all 
other things there is as much soul and reason as there 
is warm matter in them : of the air, for example, 
Democritus said that there must be much reason and 
soul (vovs and '>\rv^rj) in it, otherwise we could not 
receive them into us through the breath (Arist. 
* De Kespir.' 4). Perception consists in the change 
which is produced in the soul by the effluences going 
forth from things and entering through the organs of 
the senses ; for example, the cause of sight is that the 
images {sthaika, hsUska) flying ofif from objects give 



§24] THE ATOMISTIC SCHOOL. 81 

their shape to the intervening air, and this comes in 
contact with the effluences from our eyes. Each 
particular kind of atom is perceived by the cor- 
responding kind in us. Thought also consists in a 
similar change of the body of the soul: it is true, 
when the soul has attained the proper temperature 
through the movements it experiences. This material- 
ism, however, does not prevent Democritus, like other 
philosophers, from discriminating sharply between per- 
ception and thought {yvco/juT] a-KorLrj and f^vrjairi) in 
Tespect of their relative value ; and only expecting 
information concerning the true constitution of things 
from the latter ; though at the same time he admits 
that our knowledge of things must begin with observa- 
tion. It is also, no doubt, the imperfection of the 
sensible knowledge which occasions the complaints of 
Democritus as to the uncertainty and limitations of our 
knowledge ; but he is not therefore to be considered a 
sceptic, for he expressly opposed the scepticism of Prot- 
agoras. As the value of our knowledge is conditioned by 
elevation above the sensible, so likewise is the value of 
our life. That which is most desirable is to enjoy oneself 
as much, and to vex oneself as little, as possible ; but 
' svhaijJLOvla and KaKoBac/jiovla of soul dwell not in gold 
nor in flocks and herds, but the soul is the dwelling of 
the daemon.' Happiness essentially consists in cheer- 
fulness and peace of mind {svOv/JbLTj,^ svso-to), dpfjuovlrj, 
and d6afjL^LT]) and these are most surely attained by 

* n. iiridvfii-ns is the title of been taken, so far as they axe 

the treatise from which all or genuine. See Herzel in HermeSy 

much of the ethical fragments of xiv. 354-407. 
the philosopher seem to have 



82 PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§24 

moderation of the desires and symmetry of life 
((TVfM/jiSTplr]). This is the spirit of the practical precepts 
of Democritus, which show abundant experience, 
subtle observation, and pure principles. He does not 
appear to have tried to combine them scientifically 
with his physical theory ; and if the leading thought 
of his ethics lies essentially in the proposition that the 
happiness of man entirely depends upon his state of 
mind, there is no proof that he undertook to establish 
this proposition by general reflections, as Socrates did 
with his maxim : ' Virtue consists in Knowledge.' 
Aristotle consequently reckons Democritus, in spite of 
his moral sayings, among the Physicists, and makes 
scientific ethics begin with Socrates ('Metaph.' xiii. 
4, 1078 b. 17 ; 'Part. An.' i. 2, 642 a. 26). 

The theory of Democritus concerning the gods of 
the popular belief sounds strange to us, but in truth it 
is quite consistent with his explanation of nature. 
Though he found it impossible to share that belief as 
such, it nevertheless seemed to him necessary to 
explain it. For this purpose, while he did not discard 
the theory that extraordinary natural phenomena have 
occasioned their being attributed to the gods as their 
authors, or that certain universal conceptions are 
presented in the gods, another and more realistic expla- 
nation harmonised better with his sensualism. As the 
popular religion peopled the atmosphere with daemons, 
so Democritus supposed that in the atmosphere were 
beings of a similar form to men, but far surpassing 
them in size and duration of existence, whose influ- 
ences were sometimes beneficent, and sometimes 



§24] THE ATOMISTIC SCHOOL, 88 

malign ; the images {vide sup, p. 80) which emanate 
from them, and appear to men either in sleeping or 
waking, came to be regarded as gods. Democritus 
also attempted to give a natm-alistic explanation of pro- 
phetic dreams, and the influence of the evil eje, by 
means of his doctrine of images and effluences ; he 
likewise thought that natural indications of certain 
incidents were to be deduced from the entrails of 
sacrificial animals. 

The most important disciple of the school of 
Democritus is Metrodorus of Chios," who was instructed 
either by Democritus himself or by his scholar Nessus. 
While he agreed with Democritus in the main features 
of his doctrine, he diverged from him as to the details 
of his natural philosophy in many points, and drew 
from his sensualism sceptical inferences, by which, 
however, he can hardly have intended to deny the 
possibility of knowledge. Anaxarchus o 'EvSai/JuovLKos, 
who accompanied Alexander, and was more meritorious 
in his death than in his life, is a disciple of Metrodorus 
or of his scholar Diogenes. With Metrodorus, perhaps, 
Nausiphanes is also to be connected, who introduced 
Epicurus to the doctrine of Democritus ; but he is 
likewise said to have attended Pyrrho the Sceptic. 

§ 25. Anaxagoras. 

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, according to Apollodorus 
{ap, Diog. ii. 7, who probably follows Demetrius 
Phaler.), born in 01. 70-1, or 500 B.C., devoted himself 
to science, to the neglect of his property, and distin- 
guished himself greatly as a mathematician. Con- 



84 TRF.-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [1 25 

cerning "his teachers nothing is known ; some moderns, 
without any sufficient ground, attempt to make him a 
disciple of Hermotimus of Clazomense, a far more ancient 
and mythical wonder-worker, into whose legends (accord- 
ing to Arist. * Metaph.' 984 b. 18) Anaxagoras' doctrine 
of vovs was at an early time interpolated. In Athens, 
whither he migrated (according to Diogenes, ii. 7, about 
464—2 B.C.), he came into close relations with Pericles ; 
accused by enemies of that statesman of denying the gods 
of the State, he was forced to leave Athens (434-3 B.C.). 
He removed to Lampsacus, where he died in 428 B.C. 
(ApoUodor. ajp. Diog. ii. 7). From his treatise irspl ^var- 
sco^, in the composition of which he seems to have been 
already acquainted with the doctrines of Empedocles and 
Leucippus, important fragments have been preserved.^ 
Anaxagoras agrees with these philosophers that 
genesis and decay in the strict sense are unthinkable, 
that all genesis consists merely in the combination, 
and all decay in the separation, of substances already 
existing.^ But the motion through which the com- 
bination and separation of substances is brought about 
he knows not how to explain by matter as such ; still 
less the well-ordered motion which has produced such 
a beautiful whole, and so full of design, as the world. 
This can only be the work of an essential nature, 
whose knowledge and power extends over all things, 

' In Mallach, Fraqm. i. 243 h.Tr6x\v<yQai ovk 6p6a>s voixi^ov<nv 

ff., explained by Schaubach, oi " EWvues. ovdhv yap XP^1I^°- 

AnaoB. Fragmenta, 1827. Schorn, ytverai ovSh airdWvrai a\\' airh 

Anax. et Diogenis Fragmenta^ iSurcov xrvi^o'-touv o-v/xfiicryeTai re 

1829. Kal SiaKpiverai Kol ovrcas hv 6pda>s 

^Frag. 17 m. (Simpl. Phys. KaXolev t6 re yiveaOai <rvfifii(ryi- 

163, 20). rh W yiveadai koI adai /col rh av6Wvadai SiaKp(veadai, 



§26] ANAXAQORAS. 86 

the work of a thinking, rational, and almighty essence, 
of mind or vovs, and this power and rationality can 
only belong to vovs if it be mixed with nothing else, 
and is therefore restrained by no other. The concep- 
tion of mind as distinguished from matter thus forms 
the leading thought of Anaxagoras; and the most 
essential mark for characterising this distinction is 
that mind is altogether simple, aud matter altogether 
compound. Mind is * mixed with nothing,' * for itself 
alone ' (/jlovvos icj)' scovtov), ' the rarest and purest of 
all things ; ' in these expressions its incorporeality is 
not indeed adequately described, but yet is unmistak- 
ably intended, while the question of its personality is 
still altogether untouched by the philosopher. Its 
operation essentially consists in the separation of the 
mixed, and to this separation its knowledge also may 
be reduced, as a discrimination. Matter, on the contrary, 
before mind has worked upon it, presents a mass in 
wiiich nothing is sundered from another. But as all 
things arise out of this mass through mere separation 
of their constituents, it must not be conceived as a 
homogeneous mass, nor as a mixture of such simple 
primitive substances as the elements of Empedocles, 
or the atoms ; according to Anaxagoras it rather con- 
sists of a medley of innumerable, underived, imperish- 
able, unchangeable, invisibly small, but yet not 
indivisible corpuscles of specific quality ; particles of 
gold, flesh, bones, &c. Anaxagoras describes these his 
primitive substances as airspixara or y^priy^aTa \ later 
writers call them, in half-Aristotelian terminology, 
ofioio/isprj. 



86 PRE'SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY, [§25 

In harmony with these presuppositions Anaxagoras 
began his cosmogony with a description of the state in 
which all substances were entirely mingled together 
(' Fr.' 1 : 6yL6oi) TTCLVTa ^pn^fxara tjv). Mind effected their 
separation by producing a whirling motion at one 
point, which spreading from thence drew in more and 
more particles of the infinite mass, and will continue 
to do so. That Anaxagoras supposed mind to inter- 
fere at other stages of the formation of the universe is 
not stated; Plato ('Phsedo,' 97 B fif.) and Aristotle 
(« Metaph.* i. 4, 985 a. 18 ; 7, 988 b. 6), on the other 
hand, both censure him for not having applied his 
newly discovered principle to a teleological explanation 
of nature, and for confining himself like his predecessors 
to blindly working material causes. Through the whirl- 
ing motion, the substances drawn into it are divided 
into two masses, of which one comprehends the warm, 
the dry, the light, and the thin ; the other the cold, 
the moist, the dark, and the dense; these are the 
aether and the air, or more precisely, vapour, fog, arjp. 
The division of substances proceeds with the continued 
movement, but never comes to an end ; substances are 
in all parts of all things, and only on this account is it 
possible that a thing becomes changed by the emergence 
of substances ; if snow were not black — that is, if dark- 
ness were not in it as well as brightness — it could not 
be changed into water. The rare and the warm were 
carried by the rotation towards the circimiference, the 
dense and the moist into the centre ; the earth is 
formed from the latter, and Anaxagoras, like the older 
lonians, conceives it as a flat plate borne upon the air. 



§26] ANAXAGORAS, 87 

The heavenly bodies consist of masses of stone, which 
are torn from the earth by the force of the rotation, 
and hurled into the air, where they become ignited. 
These at first moved horizontally, and subsequently, 
from the inclination of the earth's axis, around, and at 
one part of their course, under the earth. The moon, 
Anaxagoras thought, was like the earth and inhabited ; 
the sun, which is many times larger than the Pelo- 
ponnesus, gave the greater part of their light to the 
moon and all the other stars. Through the solar heat, 
the earth, which at first was composed of slime and 
mud, in course of time dried up. 

From the terrestrial slime which fructified the 
germs contained in the air and in the aether, living 
creatures were produced. That which animates them 
is mind, and this is the same in all things, including 
plants, but is apportioned to them in different measure. 
In man, even sensible perception is the work of mind, 
but it is effected by means of the bodily organs 
(in which it is called forth not by the homogeneous but 
by the opposite), and is therefore inadequate. Eeason 
alone guarantees true knowledge. How entirely 
Anaxagoras himself lived for his inquiries, we know 
from some of his apophthegms; and some further 
utterances of his which are related reveal a noble and 
earnest view of life. That he occupied himself with 
ethics in a scientific manner, tradition does not assert; 
and not one religious philosophical maxim is known to 
have emanated from him. Personally he maintains 
towards the popular religion an attitude of full 
scientific freedom, and sought to give a naturalistic 



88 FRE-SOCItATIC PHILOSOPHY, [§26 

explanation of reputed miracles, such as the meteoric 
stone of ^gospotamos. 

Of the pupils of Anaxagoras, among whom may be 
reckoned Euripides, Metrodorus of Lampsacus is only 
known by his allegorical interpretation of the Homeric 
mythology. We have a little more information about 
Archelaus of Athens, the supposed teacher of Socrates. 
Though agreeing with Anaxagoras in other points, this 
physicist approaches more nearly to Anaximenes and 
Diogenes in that he named the original mass of matter 
air, represented spirit as mingled in air, and termed the 
separation of materials rarefaction and condensation. 
The masses which were first separated in this manner 
he called the warm and cold. The statement that he 
derived the distinction of good and bad from custom 
only (Diog. ii. 16) appears to be due to a mistake. 
As he is never mentioned by Aristotle, it is probable 
that he was not of much scientific importance. 

III. The Sophists. 

§ 26. Origin and Character of SopMsticism, 
From the beginning of the fifth century, there began 
to prevail among the Greeks certain views the dis- 
semination of which after some decades wrought an 
important ohange in the manner of thought of the 
cultured circles and in the tendency of scientific 
life. Already the conflict of philosophic theories, and 
the boldness with which they opposed the ordinary 
mode of presentation, tended to excite mistrust against 
these attempts at a scientific explanation of the world. 



§26] CHAEACTER OF SOPHISTICISM. 89 

Further, since a Parmenides and a Heracleitus, an 
Empedocles and a Democritus had disputed the truth 
of sensible perception, more general doubt in the 
capacity of man for knowledge might the more easily be 
connected therewith, because the materialism of these 
philosophers furnished them with no means of estab- 
lishing scientifically the higher truth of rational know- 
ledge; and even Anaxagoras did not employ his 
doctrine of vovs for this purpose. Still more impera- 
tively, however, did the general development of Grreek 
national life demand a change in the direction of 
scientific activity. The greater and more rapid was 
the progress of universal culture since the Persian War 
in the whole of Hellas, and above all in Athens, which 
was now the centre of its intellectual and political life, 
the more did the necessity of a special preparation for 
political activity assert itself in regard to those who 
desired to distinguish themselves ; the more com- 
pletely victorious democracy gradually set aside all 
the limits which custom and law had hitherto placed to 
the will of the sovereign people, and the more brilliant 
the prospects thus opened to anyone who could win 
over the people to himself, the more valuable and 
indispensable must have appeared the instruction, by 
means of which a man could become an orator and 
popular leader. This necessity was met by the persons 
called by their contemporaries wise men or Sophists 
{(To^ol, ao(f>L(TTal\ and announced by themselves as 
such ; they offered their instruction to all who desired 
to learn, wandering, as a rule, from city to city, and 
requiring in return a proportionately high remunara- 



90 PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§26 

tion ; a practice for which in itself they are not to be 
blamed, but which hitherto had not been customary. 
This instruction might include all possible arts and 
knowledge, and we find that men who were counted 
among the Sophists, even some of the most important 
among them, taught quite mechanical arts. But the 
principal object of Sophistic instruction was the 
preparation for practical life, and since the time of 
Plato it has been usual to call those persons Sophists, 
in the narrower sense of the word, who came forward as 
professional teachers of ' virtue ' (using the term in 
the comprehensive meaning of the Greek apsrrj) ; who 
undertook to inake their pupils adepts in action and 
speech (Zsivoiisf irpdrTSLv kol Xsystv), and to qualify 
them for the management of a household or community. 
This limitation to practical objects rests among them 
all upon the conviction — which was exjDressed by the 
most eminent Sophists in the form of sceptical theories, 
and by the majority was put in practice in their 
'eristic' — that objectively true science is impossible, 
and that our knowledge cannot pass beyond subjective 
phenomena. This view could not be without a reflex 
action upon ethics ; and the natural result was that the 
rebellion against all rule, civil, moral, or legal, which 
grew up in the feuds and factions of the period, found 
in Sophistic theories a superficial justification. Thus 
the so-called Sophists came forward as the most 
eminent exponents and agents in the Greek illumi- 
nation (Aufklarung) of the fifth century, and they 
share all the advantages and all the weaknesses of 
this position. The current condemnation of the 



§26] CHARACTER OF 80PHISTICISM, 91 

Sophists, which is dominated by Plato's view of them, 
has been opposed by Hegel, K. F. Hermann, Grote, 
and others, who have brought to light their historical 
importance. Grrote has even failed to notice the 
superficial, unsound, and dangerous element which 
from the first was united with anything that was 
justifiable and meritorious in them, and in the course 
of time came more and more to the surface. 

§ 27. Eminent Sophistical Teachers, 

The first man who called himself a Sophist and 
came forward publicly as a teacher of virtue (iratSi^v- 
ascos Kal apSTr]9 ScBdaKaXos), was, according to Plato, 
Protagoras of Abdera (Plato, ' Protag.' 31^ D f. ; 349 A). 
Born about 480 B.C. or a little earlier, he wandered 
through Hellas for forty years, devoting himself with 
brilliant success to his work as a teacher. On several 
occasions he resided at Athens under the protection of 
Pericles, but at length he was accused of atheism, 
and compelled to leave the city. On his voyage to 
Sicily he was drowned, in the seventieth year of his 
age. Of his writings only a few fragments remain. 
Contemporary with Protagoras was Grorgias of Leontini, 
bom 490-480 B.C., who first came forward as a teacher 
in Sicily, but after 427 frequented Athens and other 
cities of Central Greece. Afterwards he settled at 
Larissa in Thessaly, where he died, more than a hundred 
years old. In his later life he desired to confine his 
instructions to rhetoric, but we are acquainted with 
certain ethical definitions and sceptical arguments 
which he embodied in a separate treatise (apparently 



92 PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§27 

in his youth). Somewhat later than Protagoras and 
Gorgias are the two contemporaries of Socrates, 
Prodi cus of lulis in Ceos, who enjoyed considerable 
reputation in the neighbouring city of Athens, and 
Hippias of Elis, who poured out his mathematical, 
physical, historical, and technical information with 
vainglorious superficiality (according to his opponents). 
Xeniades of Corinth appears to have lived about the 
same time, a Sophist who, according to Sextus, ' Math.' 
vii. 53, was mentioned by Democritus. Of the remaining 
the best known are: Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, a 
rhetorician whose character has been unfavourably 
portrayed by Plato ; the brothers Euthydemus and 
Dionysodorus of Chios, the comic heroes of the Platonic 

* Euthydemus ; ' the rhetorician, moralist, and poet, 
Evenus of Paros ; the rhetoricians of the school of 
Gorgias, Polus, Lycophron, Protarchus, Alcidamas. 
Critias the leader of the Thirty, like Callicles in the 
Platonic ' Gorgias,' was not a Sophist in the technical 
sense, but a pupil of the school, 

§ 28. The Sophistical Scepticism and Eristic, 

Even as early as Protagoras the altered position of 
thought to its object was expressed in the proposition : 

* Man is the measure of all things ; of what is, how it 
is ; of what is not, how it is not ; ' * i,e, for every person 
that is true and real which appears so to him, and for 

' Pr. i. Mull. {Pragm. Phil, x/"'/""''''^'' M^Tpoi' &v6pu}Tros, ruv (xlv 

ii. 130); in Plato, Thecet. 152 A, ovtwv ws ean, ray 5' ovk ovt(dv,ujs 

] 60 C, et t(spe ; Sext. Math. vii. ovk (o-ti. 
60 ; Diog. ix. 51, &:c. irdvTwy 



§28] SOPHISTICAL SCEPTICISM, 9S 

this reason there is only a subjective and relative, not 
an objective and universal truth. In order to establish 
this principle, Protagoras (according to Plato, ' Theaet.' 
152 A fif. ; Sext. « Pyrrh.' i. 216 ff.), not only availed 
himself of the fact that the same thing makes an 
entirely different impression on different persons, but 
also of Heracleitus's doctrine of the flux of all things. 
In the constant change of objects and of the organs of 
sense each perception has a value only for a definite 
person and a definite moment, and therefore it is im- 
possible to maintain one thing rather than another of 
any object.^ Grorgias, on the other hand, in his 
treatise ' On the Non-being or Nature,' ^ made Zeno's 
dialectic his pattern, and also availed himself of pro- 
positions of Zeno and Melissus in order to prove, as he 
did with a certain acuteness, (1) that nothing could 
exist ; (2) that what did exist could not be known by 
us ; (3) and that which was known could not be im- 
parted to another. In the school of Grorgias we meet 
with the assertion that no predicate can be given to a 
subject, because one thing cannot be many. The pro- 
position of Protagoras also lies at the base of the 
principle of Xeniades, who maintained that all the 
opinions of men were false ; and the apparently 
opposite principle of Euthydemus, that everything 
applied to anything at any time and at the same 
time. If the last-mentioned Sophist deduces from the 

' Pint. Adv. Col. 4. 2. Demo- ' The contents of which we 

critus controverted the principle know from Sextus, Math. vii. 

of Protagoras, /t^ fxaWov ehai 65-87. Ps. Arist. De MelissOy c. 

rotov ^ roiov rwv trpayiidruv fKcur- 5 f. Cf . Isocr. Hel. 2 £. 

TOV. 



94 PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. [§28 

Eleatic presuppositions the inference that a man can 
neither utter nor think what does not exist and is there- 
fore false ; the same result appears in connection with 
Heracleitean and Protagorean doctrines ; and the kindred 
proposition, that a man cannot contradict himself, is 
found even in Protagoras himself. But the practical pro- 
cedure of the majority of the Sophists shows even more 
clearly than these sceptical theories how deeply rooted 
was the despair of objective knowledge in the whole 
character of this mode of thought. Independent 
inquiries in the physical part of philosophy are not 
known to have been undertaken by any of the Sophists, 
although they occasionally made use of certain assump- 
tions of the Physicists, and Hippias extended his 
instructions even to mathematics and natural science. 
The more common, on the other hand, is the art of 
disputation or eristic, which seeks its object and 
triumph not in gaining a scientific conviction, but 
merely in contracicting and confusing those who take 
a part in the dialogue. To Plato, Aristotle, and 
Isocrates, an ' Eristic ' and a ' Sophist ' are almost 
synonymous titles. Even Protagoras maintained that 
any proposition could be supported or confuted with 
good reasons. In his conversation and in his writings 
he introduced pupils to this art, and his fellow- 
countryman Democritus laments (' Fr. Mor.' 145) 
over the 'wranglers and strap-plaiters ' of his day. 
Subsequently we find the theory and practice of this 
art in an equally melancholy condition. According 
to Aristotle (*Top.' ix. 33, 183 b. 15), the theory 
consisted in making pupils learn the most common 



§28] SOPHISTICAL SCEPTICISM. 96 

* catches' by heart. The practice is seen in the 
Platonic ' Euthydemus,' degraded to empty repartee, 
and even to formal badinage ; and that this picture, 
which does not conceal its satiric nature, is not a 
mere caricature is shown by Aristotle's treatment of 
fallacies (' Top.' ix.), in which the examples are almost 
entirely borrowed from the Sophists of the Socratean 
period, from whom also the Megarian Eristics took 
their patterns. It is true that the pitiful trivialities of 
a Dionysodorus and Euthydemus are not attributed to 
Protagoras and Gorgias; but we cannot fail to recog- 
nise one as the direct descendant of the other. If, 
nevertheless, this Eristic was able to bring most dis- 
putants into difficulties and excite admiration among 
many ; if even Aristotle thought it worth serious ex- 
amination, this is only a proof how little practised in 
thinking the men of that time were, and what dif- 
ficulties could be thrown in the way of their training 
by the confusions which can hardly be avoided when 
thought, as yet unacquainted with the conditions 
necessary to correctness of method, becomes for the 
first time aware of the full extent of its power. 

§ 29. The Sophistic Ethics and Rhetoric. 

If there is no universally valid truth, there cannot 
be any universally valid law ; that is true for every man 
which appears to him to be true, that must be right of 
which he approves. The older Sophists did not deduce 
these consequences from their presuppositions. If they 
came forward as teachers of virtue, they understood by 
virtue what was universally meant by the word at the 



96 PnS-SOCnATlC PHILOSOPHY, [§29 

time. The ' Heracles ' and other moral lectures of Pro- 
dicus, the counsels which Hippias put into the mouth of 
Nestor, would never have received the approval which 
they did had they been at variance with the moral 
views of the time. In the myth in Plato (* Prot.' 320 
C £f.), which, no doubt, is taken from him, Protagoras 
regards the sense of justice and duty {piKT] and alhcos) 
as a gift of the gods vouchsafed to all men ; he there- 
fore recognises a natural justice. Grorgias described 
the virtue of the man, of the woman, of the child, of 
the slave, &c., as they were popularly conceived (Plato, 
' Meno,' 71 D f. ; Arist. ' Pol.' i. 13, 1260 a. 27). Yet 
even in the Sophists of the first generation some of the 
practical consequences of their scepticism come to the 
surface. Protagoras v^ry properly met with opposition 
when, by promising ttr make the weaker cause appear the 
stronger (tov titto) Xo^ov KpstTTco ttolslv), he recom- 
mended his rhetoric precisely on the side where it was 
open to abuse. Hippias (Xen. ' Memor.' iv. 4. 14 ff.) 
places law in opposition to nature, in a contrast of which 
he himself makes very doubtful applications, and which 
at a later time became one of the leading thoughts of 
the Sophistic art of life. Plato puts into the mouth of 
Thrasymachus, Polus, and Callicles the view which Ari- 
stotle also shows to have been widely maintained in So- 
phistic circles (' Top.'ix. 12, 173 a. 7), that natural right 
was the right of the stronger, and all positive laws were 
merely capricious enactments, which the authorities of 
the time had made in their own interest. If justice was 
generally commended this merely arose from the fact 
that the mass of men found it to their advantage. On 



§29] SOPHISTIC RHETORIC. 97 

the otber hand, anyone who felt that he had the power 
to rise above these laws had the right to do so. That 
the distinction between law and nature was also used 
to set men free from national prejudices is shown by 
the doubts io which it gave rise whether slavery was 
according to nature — doubts which Aristotle mentions, 

* Pol.' i. 3, 6- 

Among human ordinances were to be reckoned the 
belief in and worship of gods ; of this the variety of 
religions is a proof. * Of the gods,' wrote Protagoras, 

* I have nothing to say ; either that they exist or that 
they do not exist.' Prodicus saw in the gods personi- 
fications of the heavenly bodies, the elements, the 
fruits of the earth, and, generally, of all things useful 
to men. In the ' Sisyphus ' of Critias the belief in 
gods is explained as the discovery of a politician who 
employed it as a means to terrify m.en from evil. 

The more completely the human will freed itself 
/rom the limitations which religion, custom and law 
had hitherto drawn around it, the higher rose the value 
of the means by which men could win for themselves 
this sovereign will and make it their subject. With the 
Sophists all these means were included in the art of 
speech, the power of which, it . is true, was quite 
extraordinary at that time, and was altogether over- 
estimated by those who owed their whole influence to it. 
Hence of the great majority of the Sophists it is ex- 
pressly handed down that they came forward as teachers 
of elocution, composed introductions to the art, pro- 
nounced and wrote pattern speeches, which they 
caused their pupils to learn by heart. It was a neces- 



98 PRE'SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY, [§29 

sary concomitant of the whole character of the Sophis- 
tical instruction that greater weight should be laid on 
the technicalities of language and exposition than on 
the logical or actual correctness of the discussion. The 
speeches of the Sophists were exhibitions which at- 
tempted to create an effect mainly by a clever choice 
of subject, by startling turns in the treatment, copious- 
ness of expression, select, delicate, and exuberant 
language. Grorgias more especially owed to these 
peculiarities the brilliant success of his speeches, 
though it is true that to a riper taste, even in antiquity, 
they seemed over- elaborate and insipid. Yet many of 
these Sophistical rhetoricians, as for instance Thrasy- 
machus, did real service in the cultivation of the art of 
oratory and its technicalities. From them also pro- 
ceeded the first investigations into the science of 
language. Protagoras, for the first time, no doubt, 
distinguished the three genders of nouns, the tenses of 
verbs, and the kinds of sentences. Hippias laid down 
rules on metre and euphony, and Prodicus by his dis- 
tinction between synonymous words, though he doubt- 
less ascribed an undue value to it, gave a great impulse 
to lexicographical inquiries and the formation of a scien- 
tific terminology. 



SECOND PERIOD. 

SOCRATES, PLATO, ARISTOTLE. 

§ 30. Introduction. 

It was inevitable that the illumination of the Sophistic 
period should have a double effect upon scientific life. 
On the one hand, thought, in the consciousness of its 
power, demanded obedience from all authority. In the 
questions of the theory of knowledge and of ethics a 
new field of inquiry, hitherto only incidentally touched 
upon, was opened, and this inquiry received varied 
exercise in the Sophistic dialectic. On the other hand, 
the investigations of the Sophists had merely ended in 
the conclusion that a scientific foundation of ethics 
was as utterly hopeless as a scientific knowledge of the 
world ; and with the surrender of the belief in man's 
power of knowledge must be given up also the effort after 
the knowledge of truth. As the existing basis of moral 
conviction — the absolute supremacy of human and divine 
laws — was also abandoned, the moral and civic life of 
the Grreeks appeared to be in no less danger than the 
scientific life. As a fact, this alarm was not yet well 
grounded. From the beginning of the fifth century 
the moral and religious intuitions of the nation had 
undergone such a refinement and amplification by the 
poets and writers of the time, the questions which 
were of the first importance for human life had been so 



100 SOCRATES, [§80 

variously discussed, though not in a scientific form, 
that nothing was needed beyond a ^deeper reflection 
on the part of the Greek mind upon itself and the 
gains already won, in order to acquire a new and firm 
foundation for moral action. But this reflection could 
only be the work of a science which was free from the 
doubts by which the confidence in the science of the 
day had been destroyed. In opposition to the dog- 
matism of such science, it must proceed from firm prin- 
ciples about the problem and conditions of knowledge. 
In opposition to the sensuous view, from which the 
physicists had never been able to emancipate them- 
selves, it must recognise as the true object of science 
the nature of things as comprehended by thought, and 
passing beyond immediate perception. This new form 
of the scientific life Socrates founded by demanding 
knowledge through concepts, by introducing men to the 
formation of concepts by dialectic, and by applying the 
process to ethical and kindred religious questions. In 
the smaller Socratic schools separate elements of his 
philosophy were retained in a one-sided manner, and 
in an equally one-sided manner connected with older 
doctrines. Plato carried on the work of his master 
with a deeper and more comprehensive intelligence. 
He developed the Socratic philosophy of concepts, which 
he supplemented by all the kindred elements of pre- 
Socratic doctrines, to its metaphysical consequences, 
and regarded everything from this point of view. In 
this manner he created a grand system of an idealistic 
nature, the central point of which lies on the one side 
in the intuition of ideas, on the other in inquiries 



§30] SOCRATES. 101 

about the nature and duty of man. Aristotle supple- 
mented this by the most vigorous researches into 
nature. While controverting the dualistic harshness of 
the Platonic idealism, he held closely to the leading 
principles, and by extending them so widely that they 
seemed adapted to embrace the entire world of reality, 
he brought the Socratic philosophy of concepts to the 
highest scientific completeness. 

I. Socrates. 
§ 31. Life and Personality of Socrates. 

Socrates was born in 470 B.C. (it h said on the sixth 
of Thargelion), or, at latest, in the first months of the 
following year.* His father, Sophroniscus, was a sculj)- 
tor; his mother, Phaenarete, a midwife. In youth 
his education does not seem to have gone beyond the 
limits common in his country. Anaxagoras is men- 
tioned as his teacher by later writers only; and Archelaus 
by Aristoxenus — not by Ion of Chios, his contemporary 
(Diog. Laert. ii. 19. 23. 45, &c.). The absolute silence 
of Plato and Xenophon are against both these assump- 
tions, as also are expressions which Plato puts into the 
mouth of Socrates in ' Phccdo,' 97 B ; « Crito,' 52 B ; and 
Xenophon, * Mem.'iv. 7. 6 f. ; ' Symp.' i. 1. 5. At a later 
time he may have sought to increase his knowledge from 
books, mixed with the Sophists, and attended some of 
their lectures ; but he owed his philosophy rather to 

• This is clear from the state- Memor. iv. 8, 2; Plato, Phred. 59 

ments about the time of his D) and about Ids age at the 

death and condemnation (Diog. time (Plato, Ajjol. 17 D; Crito^ 

ii. 44 ; Diodor. xiv. 37 ; Xen. 52 E). 



102 SOCRATES. [§3l 

his own reflection, and to the means of culture which 
Athens then provided — to conversation with leading 
men and women — than to direct scientific instruction. 
He appears to have learnt his father's art ; but his 
higher mission of influencing the development of others 
was made known to him by the inward voice which he 
himself regarded as divine (Plato, * Apol.' 33 C), and 
this voice was at a later time confirmed by the Delphic 
oracle. Aristophanes represents him as thus engaged 
in 424 B.C., and Plato even before the beginning of the 
Peloponnesian war. He devoted himself to his work 
to the end, even under circumstances of the greatest 
poverty, and with Xanthippe at his side. His self- 
renunciation was complete. He asked for no reward ; 
neither the care of his family nor participation in public 
business withdrew him from his mission. A pattern of 
a life of few needs, of moral purity, justice, and piety, yet 
at the same time full of genuine human kindliness, a 
pleasant companion, subtle and intellectual, of never- 
failing cheerfulness and calm, he became an object of 
enthusiastic veneration to men of the most varied cha- 
racter and rank. A son of his nation, he not only dis- 
charged his civic duties in peace and in the field un- 
falteringly, unshaken by any danger, but in his whole 
nature and conduct, as well as in his views, he shows 
himself a Greek and an Athenian. At the same time 
we can find in him traits which gave even to hit con- 
temporaries the impression of something strange and 
remarkable, of an unparalleled singularity (aroTr/a). 
On the one hand there was a prosiness, an intellec- 
tual pedantry, an indifference to outward appearance, 



§81] LIFE OF S0CRATE8. 108 

which suited very well with the Silenus figure of 
the philosopher, but stood in sharp contrast to the 
susceptibility of Attic taste. On the other hand, there 
was an absorption in his own thoughts which at times 
gave the impression of absence of mind, and a power 
of emotion so potent that the dim feeling which even 
in his youth held him back when about to take this 
or that step appeared to him a daemonic sign and 
an inward oracle. Even in dreams he believed that he 
received prophetic warnings. But the ultimate basis of 
all these traits lies in the devotion with which Socrates 
withdrew himself from the external world in order to 
give his undivided interest to the problems which arise 
out of the intellectual nature of man. The same 
character is stamped on his philosophy. 

§ 32. The Philosophy of Socrates* 

The Sources, Principle. Method, 

As Socrates left no writings behind him, the only 
authentic sources of our knowledge of his teaching are 
the writings of his pupils Xenophon and Plato. Among 
later writers Aristotle alone can be taken into con- 
sideration, and he tells us nothing that cannot be 
found in Plato or Xenophon. But these two authors 
give us an essentially different picture of the Socratic 
philosophy ; and if Plato places his own views without 
any deduction in the mouth of his master, we have to 
ask whether the unphilosophic Xenophon, in his 
* Memorabilia * — the first object of which was apologetic 
— has given us the views of Socrates in their true 



104 SOCRATES. [§32 

meaning without any abbreviation. But though th is ob- 
jection is not without ground, we have no reason to 
suspect the fidelity of Xenophon's account to the extent 
which Dissen ^ and Schleiermacher ^ have done. On the 
contrary, it is clear that the statements of Xenophon 
agree with those of Plato which bear an historical stamp, 
in all essential points ; and if, with the help of Plato and 
Aristotle, we penetrate the meaning of the Socratic 
doctrine we can form from the accounts which Xenophon 
gives of his teaching and method a consistent picture 
which answers to the historical position and importance 
of the philosopher. Like the Sophists, Socrates ascribes 
no value to natural science, and would restrict philo- 
sophy to the questions which are concerned with the 
welfare of men. Like them also he demands that every 
one should form his convictions by his own reflection, 
independently of custom and tradition. But while the 
Sophists denied objective truth and universal laws, So- 
crates is on the contrary convinced that the value of 
our notions, the correctness of our actions, depends 
entirely upon their harmony with that which is true and 
just in itself. If, therefore, he restricts himself to 
practical questions, he makes correct action depend 
on correct thinking ; his leading idea is the reform of 
moral life by true knowledge; science must not be the 
servant of action, but govern it, and fix its aims ; and 
the need of science is so strongly felt by him that even 
in Xenophon's account he constantly oversteps the limits 

• De PhilosojjMa itiorali in "^ Ueher den Wertli des Socr. 

Xen«ph. dc Socr. comment, tra- ah PhtloAouJien (1818): Werke, 

d**fl., Gott, 1812. (D.'s Kl. Schr. iii. 2, 2y3 flE. 
57 f!.) 



§ 32] METHOD OF HIS PHILOSOPHY, 105 

which he has imposed upon himself, by dialectical in- 
quiries which have no practical object. For Socrates, 
therefore, the principal question is: What are the 
conditions of knowledge ? This question he answers 
with the proposition that no man can say anything 
u])OTi any subject until he knows the concept of it — what 
it is in its general unalterable nature. All knowledge, 
therefore, must begin with fixing concepts. Hence for 
this philosopher the first thing necessary is the testing oi 
his own notions in order to ascertain whether they agree 
with this idea of knowledge, the self-examination and 
self-knowledge which in his view were the beginning of 
all true knowledge, and the conditions of all right action. 
But inasmuch as the new idea of knowledge was 
indeed felt as a necessity, but not yet formulated in a 
scientific system, self-examination can only end in a 
confession of ignorance. Yet the belief in the possi- 
bility and the conviction of the necessity of knowledge 
are in Socrates far too vigorous to allow him to remain 
satisfied with the consciousness of ignorance. Eather 
they give rise to a more energetic search after knowledge, 
which here assumes shape in the fact that the philo- 
sopher turns to others in order with their assistance to 
gain the knowledge which is wanting in himself; it 
becomes inquiry in common by means of conversation. 
Tnasmuch as other men believe that they have a 
knowledge of some kind or another, he has to inquire 
how the case stands with this supposed knowledge ; 
his activity consists in the examination of men, in the 
* proving of himself and the rest of the world ' {i^srd^scv 
havTov Kal tovs dWovs), which he states to be his 



106 SOCRATES. [§32 

mission m the Platonic * Apology' (28 E, 38 A), and the 
midwifery (maieutike) of the * Thesetetus ' (149 ff). But 
inasmuch as the true idea of knowledge is found to be 
absent in those whom he subjects to his tests, the 
examination only leads to the proof of their ignorance ; 
and the request for instruction on the part of Socrates 
appears as simply ' irony.' On the other hand, so far 
as the partners in the conversation undertake to 
accompany him in the search for knowledge, and com- 
mit themselves to his guidance in the way which he 
has discovered— and this is especially the case with the 
young — younger men become with him the object of 
that inclination, which arises in any man marked out by 
nature to teach and educate, towards those who respond 
to his influence. Socrates is according to the Greek 
view a lover, though his love is not for a beautiful body 
but for a beautiful soul. The central point of the 
inquiries which Socrates carries on with his friends is 
always the fixing of concepts, and the method by which 
this object is attempted is induction by dialectics.' 
This induction does not begin with exact and 
exhaustive observation, but with well-known experi- 
ences of daily life, and propositions universally acknow- 
ledged. But as the philosopher looks at every object 
from all sides, tests every definition by contradictory 
instances, and constantly brings forward new cases, he 
compels thought to form such ideas as are adequate to 
the whole subject, and unite all the essential character- 

» Arist. Metaph. xiii. 4, 1078 KadSKov. Ih. i. 6, 987 b. 1. Part. 

b. 27: 5uo "yap iariv a ris tip A)>. i. 1, 642 a. 28, and else- 

kiTohoif) '^.coKpa.Tei SiKaiccSy rovs t' wher©. 
iTTUKTiKovs \6yovs Kalrh 6pi^e<rdmi 



32 §] METHOD OF HI8 PHILOSOPHY. 107 

is tics of the object in a manner beyond any contradic- 
tion. With Socrates the measure of truth lies in con- 
ceptions.^ However dififerent the means of which he 
avails himself to contradict the opinions of others, or 
to prove his own views, they always lead to the result, 
that that, and that only, ought to be asserted of any- 
thing which corresponds to its idea when rightly con- 
ceived. But Socrates never established any theory of 
logic or methodology, apart from the general principle 
that knowledge is through concepts. 

§ 33. The Nature of the Socratio Teaching* 

In contrast to the Physicists, Socrates confined him- 
self to ethical inquiries. Only these have a value for 
men; and to them alone is his power of knowledge 
adequate. The speculations of natural philosophy, on 
the other hand, are not only unfruitful but objectless ; 
nay, they are even mistakes, as is shown by the want of 
harmony among the professors of them, and the obvious 
difficulties into which they had brought even such 
a man as Anaxagoras. (Xen. 'Mem.' i. 1. 11 ff. ; iv. 7, 
6.) We have all the less reason to mistrust this state- 
ment, as Schleiermacher does, since Aristotle ('Metaph.' 
i. 6, 987 b. 1 ; xiii. 4, 1078 b. 17; 'Part. An.' i. 1, 
642 a. 28) confirms it, and it agrees with the general 
attitude of Socrates. As we should expect from the 
general direction of his philosophy, the leading thought 
of the Socratic ethics consists in reducing virtue to 

* Xenoph. 3Iem. iv. 6, 13 : presupposition with which the 
€t 3e ris avT(p irepi rov avTi\4yoi decision has to begin) iiravriyep 
. . iwl Trjv virodeaiy (the general tiv ■ad.vra rhp \6yoy. 



108 SOCRATES. [§33 

knowledge. According to Socrates it is not merely 
impossible to do right without knowledge ; it is impos- 
sible not to do right if what is right is known. For as 
the good is nothing else than that which is most service- 
able to the doer, and everyone desires his own good, so 
it is inconceivable in the opinion of Socrates that any 
one should not do that which he recognises as good. 
No one is voluntarily bad. In order, therefore, to make 
men virtuous it is only necessary to make quite clear 
to them what is good ; virtue arises through instruc- 
tion, and all virtues consist in knowledge. He is brave 
who knows how to conduct himself in danger; pious, 
who knows what is right towards the gods ; just, who 
knows what is right towards men, &c. All virtues, 
therefore, are reduced to one — knowledge or wisdom ; 
and even the moral basis and problem is the same in all 
men. But what the good is of which the knowledge 
makes men virtuous, Socrates finds it the more dithcult 
to say, as he has no substructure for his ethics in 
anthropology and metaphysics. On the one baud (Xen. 
'Mem.' iv. 4, 6), he explains that as just which agrees 
with the laws of the State and the unwritten laws of 
the gods ; but on the other, and this is the more 
common and consistent view, he is at pains to point 
out the basis of moral laws in the success of actions 
which are in harmony with them, and their useful- 
ness to men. For, as he says more than once (Xen. 
' Mem.' iii. 8, 9. 4 ; iv. 6, 8. Plato, 'Prot.' 333 D, 353 C 
ff. &c.), that is good which is useful for men. Good 
and beautiful are therefore relative ideas. Everything 
is good and beautiful in reference to that for which it 



§38] NATURE OF HIS TBACKING. 109 

is useful. In Plato and in Xenophon also (Plato, * Apol.' 
29 D f.; 'Crito,' 47 D f.; Xen. «Mem.' i.6, 9; iv. 8. 

6, 2 ; 9. 5, 6) Socrates regards as unconditionally useful 
and necessary before all things the care for souls and 
their perfection; but his unsystematic treatment of 
ethical questions does not allow him to carry out this 
point of view strictly. Hence, in Xenophon at any 
rate, this deeper definition of an aim is frequently 
crossed by a eudsemonistic foundation of moral duties, 
which considers a regard to the consequences upon our 
external prosperity which follow from their fulfilment 
or neglect to be the sole motive of our conduct. It 
is true that the Socratic morality even where the 
scientific basis is unsatisfactory is in itself very noble 
and pure. Without any trace of asceticism Socrates 
insists, with great emphasis, that a man shall make 
himself independent by limitation of his needs, by 
moderation and endurance ; and that he should ascribe 
greater importance to the cultivation of his mind than 
to all external goods. He demands justice and active 
benevolence towards others, commends friendship, and 
condemns psederastia in the lower sense, though his 
conception of marriage does not rise above that usual 
among the Greeks. He recognises in full measure 
the importance of civic life ; he considers it a duty for 
a man to take part in it according to his powers, and is 
at pains to form excellent citizens and ofiScers for the 
State. He requires that unconditional obedience to 
the laws which he himself observed even to the death. 
But as knowledge alone qualifies for right action, he 
would only allow the right of political action to those 



110 SOCRATBS, [§83 

who have the requisite knowledge ; these and these alone 
does he recognise as rulers. The election of officers by 
choice or lot he considers perverse, and regards the 
rule of the masses as ruinous. On the other hand, he 
has shaken off the Greek prejudice, and is opposed to the 
prevailing contempt of trade and labour. A confession 
of cosmopolitanism is placed in his mouth, but wrongly 
(Cicero, ' Tusc' v. 37, 108 &c.), and Plato ascribes to him 
the principle that a man ought to do no evil to his 
enemy (' Eep.' i. 334 B ff.), thereby contradicting Xeno- 
phon, 'Mem.'ii. 6. 35. 

Socrates considered our duties to the gods to be 
among those which are essential. This point of support 
his moral teaching cannot dispense with, and the 
less so because, as he was limited to ethics, he had not 
the means of proving the necessity of the connection 
between acts and their consequences on which moral 
laws are founded, and thus these laws present them- 
selves to him in the customary way as * the unwritten 
ordinances of the gods ' (' Mem.' iv. 4. 19). But the 
thinker, whose first principle it is to examine every- 
thing, cannot rest in mere belief; he must take account 
of the grounds of this bel'ef, and in attempting to do 
this he becomes, in spite of his radical aversion to all 
theoretical speculation, and almost against his will, 
the author of a view of nature and a theology which 
has exercised a leading influence even to the present 
time. But even here the guiding thought is the same 
as in his ethics. Man fashions his life ariorht when be 
refers all his actions to his own true benefit as a final 
object ; and Socrates looks on the whole world in its 



§33] NATURE OF HIS TEACHING, 111 

relation to this aim. He finds tliat everything in it, 
the smallest and the greatest, serves for the advantage 
of men (' Mem.' i. 4 ; iv. 3) ; and, though he works out 
this principle for the most part with a very superficial 
and unscientific teleology, he does not neglect to mark 
out the intellectual powers and prerogatives of men as 
the highest gifts which nature has vouchsafed to them. 
This arrangement of the world can only arise from the 
wisdom and beneficence of the creative reason, which we 
can nowhere seek but among the gods. In speaking of 
the gods Socrates thinks first of those of his own nation, 
but with him, as with the great poets of the fifth 
century, the plurality of the gods ends in a unity, and 
in the * Memorabilia ' (i v. 3. 13) he distinguishes the 
Creator and Euler of the universe from the other gods, 
conceiving of him, after the analogy of the human 
soul, as the mind {vovs) dwelling in the world (i. 4, 
9. 17 ff.). As the soul takes care for the body, so divine 
providence takes care for the worl,d, and especially for 
men. Socrates finds a remarkable proof of this care 
in the various modes of prophecy. For the worship 
of the gods he lays down the principle that everyone 
should adhere to the custom of his city. As to the 
rest the value of an offering was of little importance 
compared with the spirit of him who offered it, and 
special blessings were not to be prayed for, since the 
gods knew best what is good for us. He had no doubt of 
the relationship of the human soul to the divine ; on 
the other hand, he did not venture distinctly to main- 
tain its immortality (Plato, * Apol.' 40 C f. ; cf. Xen, 
*Cyrop.'viii. 7. 19ff.). 



112 SOCRATES. [§84 



§ 34. The Death of Soarates. 

When Socrates had laboured in Athens for a com- 
plete generation the charge was brought against him 
by Meletus, Anytus, and Lyco that he denied the 
existence of the gods of the State, attempted to intro- 
duce new deities in their place, and corrupted the 
youth. Had he not despised the common method of 
defence before a court ; had he made a few concessions 
to the usual claims of the judges, he would no doubt 
have been acquitted. When the sentence against 
him had been carried by a few votes * and the punish- 
ment was being discussed, he came forward before the 
court with unbroken pride, and the sentence of death 
which his accusers proposed was passed by a larger 
majority. He refused to escape out of prison as 
contrary to law, and drank the cup of hemlock with 
philosophic cheerfulness. That personal enmity played 
a part in his accusation and condemnation is probable, 
though it was not the enmity of the Sophists as some 
have supposed. Yet the deciding motive lay in the 
determination of the ruling democratic party to place 
a barrier upon the innovating Sophistical education, 
which was regarded as chiefly responsible for the 
disasters of the last decades, by punishing its leading 
representative. It was an attempt on the part of the 
democratic reaction to restore by violence the good old 
times. This attempt was not only a grievous outrage 

* According to Plato, Ajwl. 36 another reading, thirty of the 
A, it would not have been passed five or six hundred heliasts had 
if only three, or, according to voted otlierwise. 



§ 84] HIS DEATH, 113 

in the manner in which it was carried out — ^for in no 
respect had the philosopher laid himself open to legal 
punishment — but it rested upon a most dangerous 
deception. The old times could not be restored, least 
of all in this manner, and Socrates was by no means 
the cause of their disappearance. On the contrary, he 
had pointed out the only successful way of improving 
the present condition of affairs, by insisting on moral 
reform. Eegarded from a legal and moral point of 
view, his execution was a judicial murder, and as an 
historical fact it was a gross anachronism. But just as 
Socrates might have escaped the sentence, in all 
probability, had he been less independent, so the 
sentence itself had precisely the opposite effect from 
that which his opponents wished. It is doubtless a 
later invention that the Athenian people cancelled the 
sentence by punishing the accusers, but history has all 
the more completely erased it. The death of Socrates 
was the greatest triumph of his cause, the brilliant 
culmination of his life, the apotheosis of philosophy and 
the philosopher. 

n. The Smaller Socratic Schools* 

§ 35. The School of Socrates : Xenojphon, 

Among the numerous persons who were attracted 
and retained by the marvellous personality of Socrates, 
the greater part had more feeling for his moral great- 
ness and the ethical value of his speeches than for his 
scientific importance. We see from Xenophon (born 
about 430, and died about ninety years old) how the 



114 TUB SOCRATIC SCHOOLS. t§35 

Socratic pMlosophy was set forth in this respect, and 
how it was applied to human life. However worthy of 
respect he was for his practical wisdom, his piety, and 
nobility of feeling, however great his merits in preserv- 
ing the Socratic teaching, his intelligence of its philo- 
sophic meaning was limited. In a similar manner 
^schines seems to have set forth the doctrine of his 
master from its practical and common-sense side in his 
Socratic dialogues. Plato describes the two Thehans, 
Simmias and Cebes, pupils of Philolaus, as men of 
philosophic nature (' Phaedr.' 242 B), but we know no- 
thing further of either of them ; even Panaetius de- 
clared their works to be spurious, and the 'picture' of 
Cebes which has come down to us is certainly so. Be- 
sides Plato, we know of four pupils of Socrates who 
founded schools. Euclides, by combining Eleatic doc- 
trines with Socratic, founded the Megarian school ; 
Phaedo founded the kindred Elean; Antisthenes the 
Cynic, under the influence of the Sophistic of Gorgias ; 
and Aristippus the Cyrenaic, under the influence of 
Protagoras, 

§ 36. The Megarian and the Elean-Eretrian Schools. 

Euclides of Megara, the faithful follower of 
Socrates, had also become acquainted with the 
Eleatic teaching, perhaps before he met with the 
philosopher. After the death of Socrates he came 
forward in his paternal city as a teacher. He was 
succeeded by Ichthyas as leader of the school. A 
younger contemporary of the latter is Eubulides, the 
rlialectician, a passionate opponent of Aristotle ; a con- 



Sa6] MEGARIAN AND ERETRIAN SCHOOLS. 115 

temporary of Eubiilides was Thrasymachus, while Pasicles 
came somewhat later. To the last thirty years and the 
end of the fourth century belong Diodorus Cronus 
(died 307 B.C.), and Stilpo of Megara (370-290 B.C.); 
younger contemporaries of Stilpo are Alexinus the 
EristiCj and Philo, the pupil of Diodorus. The starting- 
point of the Megarian doctrine was formed, according to 
Plato, * Soph.' 246 B ff. — if Schleiermacher is right in 
referring that passage to this doctrine, as seems probable 
— ^by the Socratic teaching of concepts. If only know- 
ledge by concepts has truth (so Euclides concludes with 
Plato), reality can only belong to that to which this 
knowledge is related, to the unchangeable essence of 
things, the acrco/jLara slStj. The world of bodies, on the 
other hand, which our senses exhibit to us, is not Being 
at all. Origin, decay, change, and motion are incon- 
ceivable, and therefore it was maintained apparently 
even by Euclides that only what was real was possible 
(Arist. 'Metaph.' ix. 3). But all Being leads us back 
in the last resort (as in ' Parmenides ') to Being as a 
unity, and as Being was placed on an equality with the 
good, which is the highest concept of the Socratic ethics 
and theology, the Megarian s arrived at the conclusion 
that there was only one good, unchangeable and un- 
alterable, though known by different names, as Insight, 
Reason, Divinity, &c. In like manner there was only 
one virtue, the knowledge of this good, and the various 
virtues are but different names for this one. Every- 
thing beside the good was non-existent ; and thus the 
plurality of ' incorporeal forms ' which was at first pre- 
8iy[>posed was again given up. In order to establish 



116 THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS. [§88 

these views, the founders of the school, following the 
example of Zeno, availed themselves of indirect proof 
by the refutation of opponents ; and their pupils pursued 
this dialectic with such eagerness that the whole school 
derived from them the name of the Dialectic or Eristic. 
Most of the applications which they made use of — the 
veiled man, the liar, the horned man, the sorites — are 
quite in the manner of the Sophists, and were for the 
most part treated in quite the same Eristic spirit as 
the Sophists treated them. We hear of four proofs of 
the impossibility of movement given by Diodorus, 
which are imitated from Zeno, and a demoustration 
of the Megarian doctrine of the possible, which was 
admired for centuries under the title of the /cvpcsvcov.^ 
When nevertheless he merely asserted that what 
is or can be is possible ; that a thing may have 
been moved but nothing can move, it was a singular 
contradiction. Still further did Philo deviate from the 
strict teaching of his school. Stilpo, who had Dio- 
genes the Cynic for his teacher as well as Thrasymachus, 
showed himself a pupil of the former by his ethical 
tendencies, by the apathy and self-sufficiency of the 
wise man which he inculcated in word and deed, 
by his free attitude to the national religion, and the 
assertion that no subject admits a predicate different 
from it. But in other respects he was faithful to the 
Megarian school. His pupil Zeno combined the 
Megarian and the Cynic schools into the Stoic, 

' Cf. on this Socrates and the the Sitzmiffsber. d, BerL Akad. 
Socratic Scliools, and on the Kvpt- 1882, s. 161 fL 
(vwv, in particular, my treatise in 



§36] THE ELEAN.ERETRIAN SCHOOLS. 117 

The Elean school was closely related to the Me- 
garian. It was founded by Phsedo of Elis, the favourite 
of Socrates, with whom Plato has made us acquainted. 
Yet nothing further is known to us of his teaching. 
A pupil of the Eleans, Mosnhus and Anchipylus, was 
Menedemus of Eretria (352-278) ; even earlier he had 
attended Stilpo, in whose spirit he combined with the 
Megarian dialectics a view of life related to the Cynic, 
but at the same time going back to the Megarian 
doctrine of virtue. But the extent and continuance 
of this (Eretrian) school can only have been very limited. 

§ 37. The Cynic School. 

Antisthenes of Athens, the founder of the Cynic 
school, had enjoyed the instruction of Gorgias, and 
was himself active as a teacher before he had become 
acquainted with Socrates, to whom he henceforth 
attached himself with the greatest devotion. He 
appears to have been considerably older than Plato: 
according to Plutarch ('Lycurg.' 30 end), he survived 
the year 371 B.C. Of his numerous writings, which 
were distinguished for the excellence of their style, 
only a few fragments remain.^ After the death of 
Socrates he opened a school in the gymnasium of 
Cynosarges, and partly from this place of meeting, 
partly from their mode of life, his adherents were 
known as Cynics. Among his immediate pupils we 
only know Diogenes of Sinope, the eccentric being of 
coarse humour and indomitable will, who, after his 

* Collected by Winckelmann, Antisth. Fragm. 1842. MuUach, 
Ft, PhU. u. 261 ff. 



118 THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS. [§37 

exile from home, lived generally at Athens and died at 
Corinth at a great age in 323 B.C. The most important 
of his pupils is Crates of Thebes, a cultivated man, 
whose mendicant life was shared in admiring affection 
by his wife Hipparchia. Among the last members of 
the school known to us are Menedemus and Menippus 
the satirist, both of whom belong to the second third 
of the third century. From this date the school appears 
to have been absorbed in the Stoic, from which it did 
not emerge again for 300 years. 

What Antisthenes admired and imitated in Socrates 
was in the first instance the independence of his 
character. His scientific researches he considered of 
value only so far as they bore directly upon action. 
'Virtue,' he said (Diog. vi. 11), 'was sufficient for 
happiness, and for virtue nothing was requisite but 
the strength of a Socrates ; it was a matter of action, 
and did not require many words or much knowledge.' 
Hence he and his followers despised art and learning, 
mathematics and natural science ; and if he followed 
Socrates in requiring definition by concepts, he applied 
the doctrine in a manner which made all actual know- 
ledge impossible. In passionate contradiction to the 
Platonic ideas, he allowed the individual being only to 
exist, and hence demanded that everything should 
receive its own name (the oIksIos \6<yos) and no other. 
From this he deduced the conclusion (apparently after 
the pattern of Gorgias) that no subject can receive 
a predicate of a different nature. He rejected, there- 
fore, definition by characteristic marks ; only for what 
was composite would he allow an enumeration of its 



§37] THE CYNIC SCHOOL, 119 

constituent parts. What was simple might be ex- 
plained by comparison with something else, but it 
could not be defined. With Protagoras he maintained 
that no man could contradict himself, for if he said 
what was different he was speaking of different things. 
Thus he gave a thoroughly Sophistic turn to the 
Socratic philosophy of concepts. 

The result of this want of a scientific basis was seen 
in the simplicity of his ethics. The leading thought 
is expressed in the proposition that virtue only is a 
good, vice only is an evil; everything else being 
indifferent. That only can be good for a man which 
is proper to him (ol/cscov), and this can only be his 
intellectual possessions : all else, property, honour, 
freedom, health, life itself, are not in themselves 
goods ; poverty, shame, slavery, sickness, death are not 
in themselves evils; least of all can pleasure be re- 
garded as a good, or labour and work as an evil ; for plea- 
sure, when it becomes a man's governing principle, leads 
to his destruction, and labour educates him to virtue. 
Antisthenes used to say he would rather be mad than 
delighted {fiavsirjv jjloWov rj rjaOsiTjv), The pattern 
for himself and his pupils was the laborious life of 
Heracles. Virtue itself is referred, as with Socrates, 
to wisdom or insight ; and hence it is also maintained 
that virtue is one and can be taught ; but in this case 
strength of will coincides with insight, and moral 
practice with instruction. In itself this virtue is chiefly 
of a negative character; it consists in independence of 
externals, in freedom from needs, in eschewing what is 
evil, and it appears (according to Arist. ' Eth. N.' ii. 2, 



120 THE 80CRATIC SCHOOLS. [§37 

1104 b. 24) to have been described even by the Cynics 
as apathy and repose of feeling. The less that the 
Cynics found this virtue among their contemporaries, 
the more exclusively did they divide the world into 
two classes of the wise and the fools ; the more abso- 
lutely did they ascribe to the former all perfection 
and happiness, and to the latter all vice and misery. 
The virtue of the wise man was a possession which 
could not be lost. In their own conduct they exhibit 
as their ideal an exaggeration of the Socratic freedom 
from needs. Even Antisthenes boasts (Xen. ' Symp.' 
4, 34 fif.) the wealth which he gained by restricting 
himself to what was absolutely indispensable ; but he 
possessed a dwelling, however humble it might be. 
After the time of Diogenes, the Cynics led a profes- 
sional mendicant life, without any habitations of their 
own, living on the simplest food, and content with the 
most meagre clothing (the tribon). Their principle 
was to harden themselves against renunciation, disas- 
ter, and sorrow ; they proved their indifference to life 
by voluntarily abandoning it. As a rule they renounced 
family life, in the place of which Diogenes proposed the 
oommunity of women ; they ascribed no value to the 
contrast of freedom and slavery, because the wise man, 
even though a slave, is free and a born ruler. Civic 
life was not a requisite for the wise man, for he was at 
home everywhere, a citizen of the world. Their ideal 
polity was a state of nature in which all men lived 
together as a herd. In their conduct they purposely 
rebelled, not only against custom and decency, but not 
unfrequently against the feelings of natural shame, in 



§87] TUB CYNIC SCHOOL, 121 

order to exhibit their indifference to the opinions of 
men. They opposed the religious faith and worship 
of their people, as enlightened persons ; for in truth 
{Kara (jivaLv) the^e was, as Antisthenes says with 
Xenophanes, only one God, who is unlike anything 
visible; it is custom (vojjlos) which has created a 
variety of gods. In the same way the Cynics saw a 
real worship in virtue only, which made the wise friends 
of the gods ; with regard to temples, sacrifices, prayers, 
vows, dedications, prophecies, they expressed them- 
selves with the greatest contempt. Homeric and other 
myths were recast by Antisthenes for a moral object 
The Cynics regarded it as their peculiar mission to 
attach themselves to moral outcasts ; and no doubt they 
had a beneficial influence as preachers of morality and 
physicians of the soul. If they were reckless in attack- 
ing the folly of men, if they opposed over-cultivation by 
the coarse wit of the common people, and the corrup- 
tion of their times . by an unbending will, hardened 
almost to the point of savagery, in a pharisaic contempt 
of mankind, yet the harshness of their conduct has 
its root in sympathy with the misery of their fellow- 
men, and in the freedom of spirit to which Crates and 
Diogenes knew how to elevate themselves with cheerful 
humour. But science could expect little from these 
mendicant philosophers, and even among the most cele- 
brated representatives the extravagances of the school 
are unmistakable. 



122 THE SOCBATIC SCHOOLS. [S3& 



§ 38. The Cyrenaic School. 

Aristippus of Cyrene, who, according to Biog. ii. 
83, was older than ^schines, and so, no doubt, some- 
what older than Plato, appears to have become ac- 
quainted with the doctrines of Protagoras while yet 
resident in his native town. At a later time he sought 
out Socrates in Athens and entered into close relations 
with him. Yet he did not unconditionally renounce 
his habits of life and views. After the death of 
Socrates, at which he was not present, he appears for a 
long time to have resided as a Sophist in various parts 
of the Grrecian world, more especially at the court of 
Syracuse — whether under the elder or the younger 
Dionysius or both is not clear. In Cyrene he founded 
a school which was known as the Cyrenaic or Hedonistic. 
His daughter Arete and Antipater were members of it. 
Arete educated her son Aristippus (o fiTjrpoSlSaKTos) 
in the doctrines of his grandfather. The pupil of 
Aristippus was Theodorus the atheist, and indirectly 
Hegesias and Anniceris were pupils of Antipater (all 
three about 320-280). Their contemporary Euemerus, 
the well-known common-place rationalist, is perhaps 
connected with the Cyrenaic school. 

The systematic development of the Cyrenaic doc- 
trine must be ascribed, in spite of Eusebius (' Pr;rp. 
Evang.' xiv. 18, 31), to the elder Aristippus. This is 
proved partly by the unity of the school, and partly by 
the reference to the doctrine in Plato (' Phileb.' 42 D f. ; 
53 C) and Speusippus, who, according to Diogenes (iv. 5), 



§38] THE CYRENAIC SCHOOL. 123 

composed an * Aristippus.* So far as any indications 
go, at least a part of the writings ascribed to Aristippus 
were genuine. Like Antisthenes, Aristippus measured 
the value of knowledge by its practical usefulness. He 
despised mathematics, because they did not inquire what 
is wholesome or harmful ; he considered physical inves- 
tigations to be without object or value ; and of discus- 
sions concerning the theory of knowledge he only 
adopted what was of use in establishing his ethics. 
Our perceptions, he said, following Protagoras, instruct 
us only about our own feelings, not about the quality 
of things or the feelings of other men ; and therefore 
it was justifiable to gather the law of action from sub- 
jective feelings only. But all feeling consists in motion 
(Protagoras); if the motion is gentle the result is 
pleasure ; if rough or hasty, the result is pain ; if no 
motion takes place, or but a slight motion, we feel 
neither pleasure nor pain. That of these three condi- 
tions pleasure alone is desirable, that the good coin- 
cides with the pleasant, and the bad with the unplea- 
sant, Aristippus believed to be declared to everyone 
by the voice of nature. Thus the crowning principle 
of his ethics is the conviction that all our actions must 
be directed to the object of gaining for us as much plea- 
sure as possible. By pleasure Aristippus does not, like 
Epicurus after him, think only of repose of spirit, for 
this would be the absence of any feeling but of positive 
enjoyment. Even happiness, as a state, cannot, in his 
opinion, be the object of our life, for only the present 
belongs to us, the future is uncertain, and the past is 
gone. 



124 IRE SOCBATIC SCHOOLiS. [§38 

What kind of things or actions bring us pleasure is 
indifferent, for every pleasure as such is a good. Yet 
the Cyrenaics would not contend that there was not a 
distinction of degrees among enjoyments. Nor did 
they overlook the fact that many of them were pur- 
chased by far greater pain, and from these they dis- 
suaded their followers. Finally, though the feelings of 
bodily pain and pleasure are the more original and 
potent, they were aware that they were pleasures which 
did not arise immediately out of bodily conditions. 
Along with this they recognised the necessity of 
correctly estimating the relative value of various goods 
and enjoyments. This decision, on which depends all 
the art of living, we owe to prudence {(f)p6v7]acs, sttl- 
a-T7]fji7), iraiBsia) or philosophy. It is this which shows 
us what use we are to make of the goods of life, it liber- 
ates us from fancies and passions which disturb the 
happiness of life, it qualifies us to apply everything in 
the manner best suited for our welfare. It is therefore 
the first condition of all happiness. 

Agreeably with these principles Aristippus pro- 
ceeded, in his rules of life and in his conduct — so far as 
tradition allows us to judge of this — in a thoroughgoing 
manner to enjoy life as much as possible. But under 
all circumstances he remained master of himself and 
his life. He is not merely the capable man of the world, 
who is never at a loss when it is needful to provide the 
means of enjoyment (occasionally in an unworthy 
manner), or to find a witty and clever turn in cider to 
defend his conduct. He is also the superior mind, 
which can adapt itself to every situation, extract the 



§38] THE CYRENAIC SCHOOL. 125 

best from everything, secure his own cheerfulness and 
contentment by limiting his desires, by prudence and 
self-control.* He met his fellow-men in a gentle and 
kindly spirit ; and in his later years certainly sought to 
withdraw himself from civic life (as in Xen. ' Mem.' ii. 
1), in order to lose nothing of his independence. He 
had the warmest veneration for his great teacher ; and 
in the value which he ascribed to insight (prudence), 
in the cheerfulness and inward freedom which he 
gained by it, we cannot fail to recognise the influence 
of the Socratic spirit. Yet his doctrine of pleasure, 
and his search after enjoyment, in spite of the extent 
to which they rested on the foundation of the Socratic 
ethics, are opposed essentially to the teaching of his 
master, just as his sceptical despair of knowledge con- 
tradicts the concept-philosophy of Socrates. 

In the Cyrenaic school this contradiction of the 
elements contained in it came to the surface in the 
changes which were made in the doctrine of Aristippus 
about the beginning of the third century. Theodorus 
professed himself an adherent of the school, and from 
their presuppositions he deduced the extreme conse- 
quences with cynical recklessness. But in order to 
render the happiness of the wise man independent of 
external circumstances, he sought to place it, not in 
particular enjoyments, but in a gladsome frame of mind 
{•)(apd)^ of which insight had the control. Hegesias, 
the irsLaiOdvaroSy had such a lively sense of the evil of 
life that he despaired of any satisfaction in positive 

' Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res, 
Tentantem majora, fere praesentibus aequum. — Her. Ep. i. 17. 23. 



126 PLATO. [§38 

enjoyment, and passing beyond Theodorus he found 
the highest object of life in keeping himself clear of 
pain and pleasure by indifference to all external things. 
Finally Anniceris, though he would not give up the 
doctrine of pleasure as a principle, placed essential 
limitations upon it, when he ascribed so high a value to 
friendship, gratitude, love of family and country, that 
the wise man would not shrink from sacrifices on their 
account, 

III. Plato and the Older Academy. 
§39. The Life of Plato} 

According to the trustworthy statements of Hermo- 

dorus and Apollodorus (Diog. iii. 2, 6), Plato was born 

in 01. 88, 1 (427 B.C.), and ancient tradition fixed the 

seventh of Thargelion (May 26-7 or 29-30) as his 

birthday. Both his parents, Aristo and Perictione, 

belonged to the ancient nobility. At first he was 

called Aristocles, after his grandfather. The social 

and political position of his family secured for him on 

the one hand the careful cultivation of his great gifts of 

intellect ; and on the other inclined his superior nature 

from the first to the aristocracy. The artistic talent 

which excites our admiration in the writings of Plato 

expressed itself in the poetical attempts of his youth. 

He was first instructed in philosophy by Cratylus (see 

supra, p. 71) ; his connection with Socrates began in his 

' Recent monographs on the Plat(misvnis (1864), ii. 158 ff. 

subject are : K. F. Hermann, Grote, Plato, 1865, 3rd edit. 

Getch. V. Si/st. der Plat. Phil. 1 1876. Chaignet, L.i vie et let 

(aid only) vol. 1839, s. 1-126. Merits de Platmi, 1871. Stein- 

H. V. Stein, 7 Biicher z. Oesch. d. hart, PlatorCs Lebe% 1873. 



§39] THE LIFE OF PLATO. 127 

twentieth year, and in eight years of friendly confi- 
dence he penetrated more deeply than any other into 
the spirit of his master. But these years were also 
employed in making himself acquainted with the doc- 
trines of the older philosophers, 

After the death of Socrates, at which he was not pre- 
sent, according to the statement in the ' Phsedo ' (59 B) 
which is probably without foundation, he repaired with 
the other Socratics to Euclides at Megara in order to 
withdraw himself from some kind of persecution. Here 
he remained for no long time and then set out upon 
travels which took him to Egypt and Cyrene. On his 
return he appears to have first remained at Athens, 
-where for eight years he was occupied, not in writing 
only, but also as a teacher, at any rate in a narrow 
circle. Then he proceeded (about 388 B.C.) to Lower 
Italy and Sicily, being now forty years of age, accord- 
ing to ' Epistle ' vii. 324 A. Here he visited the court 
of Dionysius the elder, with whom he fell into such ill 
favour that the tyrant handed him over to Pollis, a 
Spartan, and he was sold as a slave in the market of 
^gina. Being ransomed by Anniceris the Cyrenaic, he 
returned to Athens, and is now said for the first time 
to have formally opened a school in the Grymnasium of 
the Academy, and afterwards in his own gardens, which 
were close at hand. Besides philosophy he taught 
mathematics, in which he was one tof the greatest pro- 
ficients of his time. He not only gave instructions in 
conversation but also delivered lectures, as is proved be- 
yond a doubt, for the later period ; the members of the 
society were brought together every month at common 



128 PLATO. t§39 

meals. He renounced politics, because in the Athens 
of his time he found no sphere for his action. But 
when, after the death of Dionysius the elder (368 B.C.), 
he was invited by Dion to visit his successor, he did 
not refuse the invitation, and, badly as the attempt 
ended, he repeated it, apparently at Dion's wish, some 
years afterwards. On the second occasion the suspicion 
of the tyrant brought him into great danger, from 
which he was only liberated by Archytas and his friends. 
Returning to Athens, he continued his scientific 
activity with unabated vigour till his death, which took 
place in 01. 108, 1 (347 B.C.), when he had completed 
his eightieth year. Of his character antiquity speaks 
with almost unanimous veneration, and the verdict is 
confirmed by his writings. The picture of an ideal in- 
tellect, developed into moral beauty in the harmonious 
equipoise of all its powers, and elevated in Olympian 
cheerfulness above the world of change and decay, which 
his writings present to us, is also expressed in those 
myths by which the philosopher at a very early time 
was brought into connection with the Delphian deity. 

§ 40. Plato's Writings, 

Plato's activity as an author extends over more 
than fifty years. It began apparently before, and 
beyond doubt immediately after, the death of Socrates, 
and continued to the end of his life. All the works 
which he intended for publication have come down to 
us ; but in our collection not a little that is spurious 
is mingled with what is genuine. Besides seven small 
dialogues considered as spurious even in antiquity, we 



§40] PLATO'S WRITINGS. 129 

possess thirty-five dialogues, a collection of definitions, 
and thirteen (perhaps eigliteen)letters. Of these writings 
part are supported not only by internal evidence, but by 
the witness of Aristotle.' The ' Republic,' the ' Timseus,' 
the ' Laws,' the ' Phsedo,' the ' Phsedrus,' the ' Sympo- 
sium,' the ' Grorgias,' the ' Meno,' the *Hippias' ('JViinor'), 
are quoted by Aristotle as Plato's either by name or in 
such a manner that their Platonic origin is assumed as 
certain. The ' Thesetetus,' the 'Philebus,' the ' Sophist,' 
the ' Politicus,' the ' Apology ' are referred to by Ari- 
stotle in a manner so unmistakable that we can neither 
doubt his acquaintance with these writings nor his 
recognition of their Platonic origin. The case is the 
same with the ' Protagoras ' and the ' Crito ' (44 A ; cf. 
Arist. *Fr.' 32). We have less certainty in regard to 
the ' Lysis,' the ' Charmides,' the ' Laches,' the ' Craty] us,' 
and the ' Hippias Major.' The ' Euthydemus ' is referred 
to only in the 'Eudemian Ethics '(vii. 14, 1247 b. 15); 
the ' Menexenus ' in a part of the * Ehetoric,' which is 
apparently post- Aristotelian ('Rhet.' iii. 14, 1415 b. 30). 
But as it cannot be maintained that Aristotle must 
have mentioned all the works of Plato which he knew 
in the writings which have come down to us, we can 
only conclude that he is unacquainted with a work 
because he does not mention it, when we can prove 
that, if he had known it, he must have mentioned it 
in a particular place. But this in fact we never can 
prove. With regard to any internal characteristics for 
distinguishing the genuine and spurious, we must not 

* On which see Bonitz, Index Aristotel. p. 598 ; Plato and the 
Older Academy f p. 54 &, 



130 PLATO. [%^ 

overlook the fact that on the one hand a clever 
imitation in an interpolated treatise would give the 
impression of genuineness, and on the other even a 
Plato cannot have produced works equally perfect. So 
rich an intellect could not be restricted to one form of 
exposition : he may have had reasons to content him- 
self in some of his dialogues with merely preparatory 
discussions, leaving the last word unspoken ; and his 
views no less than his style may have undergone 
changes in the course of half a century. Lastly, much 
may appear to us strange merely because we have no 
acquaintance with his special circumstances and rela- 
tions. By recent scholars the genuineness of the ' Prot- 
agoras,' ' Grorgias,' ' Phsedrus,' ' Phaedo,' ' Theaetetus,' 
' Eepublic,' and ' Timgeus ' has been universally or almost 
universally acknowledged.^ The ' Sophist,' ' Politicus,' 
and *Parmenides' have been rejected by Socher and 
Schaarschmidt, and in part by Suckow and Ueberweg ; 
the ' Philebus ' and ' Cratylus ' by Schaarschmidt ; 
the * Meno ' and ' Euthydemus ' by Ast and Schaar- 
schmidt ; but partly by their internal character, and 
partly by the evidence of Aristotle and by references 

1 Besides the numerous dis- NafAirl. Ordnung d. plat. ScJir.y 
cussions on separate works 1857. Susemihl, Genet. Ent- 
we may quote Schleiermacher, wield, d. jjlat. Phil. 1855 f. 
Plato's Wcrke, 1 804 (2. Aufl . 1 8 1 6 ); Ueberweg, Uri tersvch. ilh. A rch t- 
Ast, Platans Lehen nnd Schriften, heit u. Zciifolge 2>liit. Sohr. 1861. 
1816. Soclier, Ueher Plato's Grundriss, i. § 4. H. v. Stein, 
tSoh7-if ten, IS20. K. F. Hermann 7 BilcTier z. Gesch.d. Platcmisnius, 
(siq). p. 126, note); Eitter, ii. 181 1862, 1864. Schaarschmidt, 
Jf. Brandis, ii. a. 151 IT. Stall- Die Savtmlung d. plat. Schr. 
baum in the introductions to his 1866. Grote, Plato, 1865. Rib- 
edition of Plato. Steinhnrt in bing. Genet. EntwicM. d. plat. 
Plato's Werlie Whers. v. Miiller, Idee^ih'hre,\^Q,'df.\\.Tl\i\. Zeller, 
1850 ff. Suckow, Form der ])la- Plato and the Older Academy ^ 
tonischen Schriften, 1855 ; Munk, chap. ii. 



§40] PLATO'S WHITINGS. 131 

in Plato, they are proved to be genuine.' The same 
holds good of the ' Critias,' which Socher and Suckow 
rejected, the * Apology ' and the ' Crito,' which Ast 
considered un-Platonic. The ' Laws,' which, following 
Ast, I attacked in my * Platonic Studies,' and which 
Suckow, Kibbing, Striimpell (« Prakt. Phil. d. Gr.' 
i. 457), and Oncken (' Staatsl. d. Arist.' 1. 194 ff.) con- 
sider spurious, must be regarded both on internal and 
external grounds as a work of Plato which he left un- 
finished, and which was published, not without alteration, 
by Philippus of Opus (according to Diog. iii. 37). The 

* Hippias Minor,' for which we have good evidence, 
may be defended as a work of youth, the ' Euthyphro' 
as an occasional treatise, and in regard to the ' Lysis,' 
' Charmides,' and ' Laches,' there is less difficulty still. 
On the other hand, the 'Menexenus' is justly given 
up by most authorities ; and the balance is strongly 
against the 'Hippias Major,' the 'Alcibiades I.,' and 
the 'Ion: The « Alcibiades IL,' the 'Theages,' the 

* Anterastge,' the ' Epinomis,' the ' Hipparchus,' the 
' Minos,' the ' Clitophon ' are only defended by Grote 
on the ground of the supposed genuineness of the 
Alexandrian lists (see Diog. iii. 6^ ff.). The spuriousness 
of the ' Definitions ' is beyond doubt : the ' Letters 'are 
the work of various authors and dates, but not one was 
written by Plato. 

The date of the writings of Plato can only be fixed 
approximately in the case of a few by their relation 
to certain events (' Euthyphro,' ' Apology,' ' Crito,' 

> Pa/rm. 129 B £E., 130 E ff., 14 C, 16 B; Mem, 80 D ff., in 
are plainly referred to in Philebm, Phesdo, 72 E f . 



132 PLATO. [§40 

* Meno,' 90 A ; *Tlieaetetus,''imt, ' Symp.' 193 A), or by 
trustworthy statements (' Laws,' see above). The order 
can be explained either by a certain arranged plan, or 
from Plato's own development, or from the accidental 
relation of the various occasions and impulses which led 
to the composition of each work. The first principle 
only has been regarded by Schleiermacher, the second 
by Hermann, the third by Socher and Ast ; while re- 
cent scholars have considered all three as correct within 
limits, however different their verdict on the effect 
of each upon the result. No assistance can be derived 
for the decision of the question and the settlement of 
the order in which, the various treatises were composed 
from the traditional classifications of the dialogues, or 
the trilogies into which Aristophanes (about 200 B.C.) 
arranged fifteen of the dialogues, or the tetralogies into 
which Thrasylus (20 A.D.) arranged the whole. With 
the exception therefore of a few chronological data, 
we are limited entirely to internal evidence ; and in 
this the most secure grounds are afforded by the 
references, direct or indirect, in the dialogues to one 
another, and the philosophic views set forth in each. 
Next in importance is the character of the artistic 
style and of the language. To gather from one or the 
other a decisive criterion for the arrangement of the 
whole works of Plato is an attempt which hitherto has 
failed, and Munk's assumption that the dialogues can 
be arranged according to the age of Socrates in them 
breaks down entirely. 

Following these lines, we can first of all assign a 
portion of the dialogues, with Hermann, to the Socratio 



§40] PLATO S WRITINGS, 133 

period of Plato, i,e, to the period in which he had not 
as yet advanced essentially beyond the position of his 
teacher. This period seems to have come to an end with 
his travels to Egypt. To it we may ascribe the ' Hippias 
Minor,' the ' Euthyphro/ the ' Apology,' the * Crito,' the 
' Lysis,' the ' Laches,' the ' Charmides,' and the ' Prot- 
agoras ' as the final and culminating point in the 
series. On the other hand, in the ' Gorgias,' ' Meno,' 
and ' Euthydemus,' and still more definitely in the 
' Thesetetus,' ' Sophist,' * Politicus,' ' Parmenides,' and 
' Cratylus,' the doctrines of ideas, of pre-existence, 
immortality and the migration of souls, and, along with 
them, the proofs of an acquaintance with Pythagorean- 
ism are too distinct to allow us to follow Hermann in 
placing the ' Euthydemus,' ' Meno,' and ' Gorgias ' in 
the ' Socratic period ;' the dialectical dialogues (' Theye- 
tetus,' &c.) in the ' Megarian period,' for which indeed 
there is no sufficient historical evidence; and, assigning 
Plato's more precise acquaintance with the Pythagorean 
philosophy to his Sicilian journey, to bring down the 
'Phsedrus ' to the period subsequent to this, 387-6 B.C. 
On the contrary, though the ' Phaedrus ' cannot, with 
Schleiermacher, be regarded as the earliest treatise of 
Plato, or placed, with Usener, in 402-3 B.C. (* Eh. 
Mus.' XXXV. 131 ff.), there is much to show that it was 
composed about 396 B.C., before the ' Gorgias,' the 
' j\leno ' (which cannot have been written before 395 
li.c. ; cf. 90 A), and the ' Theaetetus ' (not before 394;. 
If, therefore, in these and in the dialectical dialogues 
Plato proceeds step by step in the investigations of 
which he had given a summary in the ' Phaedrus,' the 



134 PLATO. l§40 

reason is that lie has in view a methodical foundation 
and development of his doctrine. The ' Symposium' 
(not before, but certainly not long after, 385 B.C. ; of. 
193 A), ' Phsedo,' and ' Philebus ' appear to be later. 
With the last-mentioned is connected the ' Kepublic,' 
as we see from the direct reference in 505 B, for there 
is no reason to break up this dialogue with Hermann 
and Krohn^ into different and heterogeneous parts* 
On the ' Republic ' follows the ' Timseus,' the continu- 
ation of which is the ' Critias,' an unfinished work, 
owing perhaps to Plato's Sicilian travels. The ' Laws,' 
which is the most comprehensive work of Plato, doubt- 
less occupied the aged philosopher during a series of 
years, and was not published till after his death. 

§ 41. The Character^ Method, and Divisions of the 
Platonic System, 

The Platonic philosophy is at once the continuation 
and the supplement of the philosophy of Socrates. 
Plato has not, any more than his master, a merely 
theoretic inquiry in view. The whole conduct of man is 
to be penetrated and guided by the thoughts which 
the philosopher furnishes ; his moral life is to be re- 
formed by philosophy. Like Socrates, he is convinced 
that this reform can only be founded upon knowledge, 
and that the only true knowledge is that which pro- 
ceeds from the science of concepts. But he desires to 
develop this knowledge into a system. With this aim 
he first reviews all his predecessors among Greek philo- 
sophers, and avails himself of all the points of contact 
* D.jflatott, Staat, 1876; Die^laton. Frage^ 1878. 



§41] THE PLATONIC SYSTEM, 186 

which they present ; then, in working out his system, 
he passes far beyond the limits of the Socratic philo- 
sophy. Out of the Socratic dialectic grows his doctrine 
of ideas ; out of the ethical principles of his master a 
detailed ethics and politics; and both are supple- 
mented by a philosophy of Nature, which though 
inferior in importance to the other branches, yet fills 
up the most remarkable deficiencies in the Socratic 
philosophy in harmony with his whole point of view. 
It is due to this need of forming a system that not only 
is the scientific method of Socrates extended in fact in 
the direction of the formation of concepts and their 
development, but the rules of this method are fixed 
more definitely, and thus the way is prepared for the 
logic of Aristotle. Yet in the Platonic writings 
Socrates' mode of developing ideas in dialogue is re- 
tained, because truth cannot be possessed as a tradition 
but only as an independent discovery. But the per- 
sonal dialogue becomes artistic, and approaches more 
and more to continuous speech. Socrates forms the 
centre of the dialogue, partly from feelings of affec- 
tionate regard, and partly from artistic reasons, and 
above all because philosophy as a living power can 
only be completely exhibited in the perfect philosopher. 
This exposition is enlivened by the myths in which 
Plato's poetical nature is exhibited, no less than in the 
brilliant mimicry of many dialogues. But at the same 
time the myths point to the gaps in the system, inas- 
much as they are only introduced where the subject 
cannot be treated with exact scientific precision. 

The division of philosophy into Dialectic, Physics, 



136 PLATO, [§41 

and Ethics (cf. § 51), is found in fact though not in 
form in Plato ; but these systematic inquiries are in- 
ferior to the propaedeutic, which occupy the largest 
space in the writings of his earliest years, and recur in 
the later works. 

§ 42. The Propcedeutic Foundation of the 
Platonic Philosophy, 
In order to justify philosophy and define its pur- 
poses, Plato points out deficiencies both in the ordinary 
consciousness and in the sophistical illumination which 
sought to usurp its place. These deficiencies can only 
be met by philosophic knowledge and life. Ordinary 
consciousness in its theoretic side is consciousness 
making presentations ; it seeks truth partly in per- 
ception, partly in presentation or opinion (Sofa). This 
practical character is expressed in ordinary virtue and 
in the common priDciples of morality. Plato shows on 
his part that knowledge does not consist in perception, 
nor in right presentations. Perception does not show 
us things as they are but as they appear to us, and 
therefore under the most variable and opposite forms. 
('Theset.' 151 E ff . &c.) Presentation, on the other 
hand, even though correct in regard to what is pre- 
sented, is not conscious of its principles ; it does not 
rest on instruction but on simple persuasion, and is 
always in danger of being transformed into error. Know- 
ledge is always true, but presentation may be true or 
false. Even right presentation is only midway between 
knowledge and ignorance. (* INIeno,' 97 ff. ; * Theaet.' 187 
ff.; <Sym.' 202; 'Tim.' 51 E.) The case is the same 



§42] FOUNDATION OF PLATO'S SYSTEM. 137 

according to Plato with ordinary virtue. Resting on 
custom and right presentation, not on knowledge, and 
therefore without real teachers, it is entirely at the 
mercy of accidents {6sLa /locpa, ' Meno,' 89 D ff. ; 
* Phsedo,' 82, &c.). It is so uncertain of its own prin- 
ciples that it permits evil as well as good (evil to 
enemies and good to friends) ; so impure in its motives 
that it has no other foundations for moral claims than 
pleasure and profit ('Rep.' i. 334 B ff., ii. 362 E ff.). 
It is only knowledge which can furnish a secure 
guarantee for the correctness of action ; for action is 
always governed by the views of the person acting, 
and no one is voluntarily evil. Hence in his 
earlier writings, Plato, like Socrates, refers all virtues 
to insight. But he does not say whether and how 
far it is possible to speak of a plurality of virtues. 
Like Socrates, also, he explains insight (' Phsedo,' 
68 B ff.) as that alone which a man should make the 
object of his life, and to which he should sacrifiice every- 
thing else. But insight is not to be found among 
the Sophists who come forward as the moralists of their 
time. On the contrary, their teaching would destroy 
all the foundations of science as well as of morality. 
The principle that man is the measure of all things, 
and that what seems true to a man is true for him, over- 
throws all truth, including the proof of the principle so 
asserted. ('Thesel.' 170 f., 177 ff.) To maintain 
that pleasure is the highest object of life, and that 
everything is permitted to a man which is right in his 
eyes, is to confound the good with the pleasant, the 
essential and unchangeable with the phenomenal, 



138 PLATO. [§42 

which admits of no fixed limitation. Such a principle 
mingles that which has an absolute value with what may 
be good or bad, and is as a rule conditioned by its 
opposite, pain. ('Gorg.' 466 ff., 488 ff . ; *Phileb.' 23 
ff.; «Eep.' i. 348 ff., vi. 505 C, ix. 583 f.) Hence 
sophistic, which maintains these doctrines, and rhetoric, 
which gives them a practical application, can only be 
regarded as the opposites of the true art of life and 
science ; and can only be regarded as a sort of second- 
ary art, or scientific faculty, which puts appearance in 
the place of reality. {' Gorg.' 462 fi'. ; « Soph.' 223 B 
ff., 232 ff., 254 A ff., 264 D ff . ; ' Phsedo,' 259 E ff.) 

It is philosophy and philosophy only which renders 
the service promised by sophistic. The root of philo- 
sophy is Eros, the effort of the mortal to win immor- 
tality, which attains its proper aim by the progress from 
the sensual to the intellectual, from the individual to 
the general, in the intuition and exposition of the idea, 
(« Symp.' 201 D ff. ; * Ph^dr.' 243 E ff.). But ideas are 
known by means of thinking in concepts or dialectical 
thought {StaXs/cTCKr) /j^sdoSos, ' Eep.' vii. 533 C). This 
thought has a double mission. It forms concepts by 
which we rise from the individual to the general, the 
conditioned to the unconditioned, and it divides them. 
This division brings us down by natural intermediaries 
from the general to the particular, and thus instructs 
us in the mutual relation of concepts, the possibility or 
impossibility of uniting them ; their arrangement as 
superior, inferior, or co-ordinate. In the formation of 
concepts Plato follows the same principles as his master, 
but he puts these principles in more precise terms. A 



§42] FOUNDATION OF PLATO'S SYSTEM. 139 

special means for this object is found in the testing of 
presuppositions by their consequences, which in the 
* Parmenides ' assumes the form of a development of 
concepts by antinomies. In regard to classification he 
demands that it should rest in the qualitative difference 
of things, and proceed progressively without omitting 
any intermediate step (this, according to 'Phileb.' 
17 A, is exactly the distinction between BiaXsKTifccos 
and ipccrrt/ccos TvoislaOaL rovs Xoyovs). Hence dichot omy 
is preferred before any other kind of division.^ But 
as Plato shows in the Cratylus, the dialectician has 
also to decide on the correctness of expression in 
language, since on this entirely depends the extent to 
which he sets forth the nature of the things which he 
has to describe. On the other hand, it is a mistake to 
gather from words conclusions which are only warranted 
by the concept of the matter. But as knowledge by 
concepts and moral action were most closely united by 
Socrates, so also in Plato. Philosophy in his view of it 
not only includes all knowledge when this is pursued in 
the correct manner, but it also secures the unfailing ful- 
filment of moral duties. It is the elevation of the 
entire man out of the life of the senses ; the application 
of the intellect to the idea : all other cultivation and 
education is merely a preparation for it ('Eep.' vii. 
514 £f., 521 C £f.; ii. 376 E ff . ; iii. 401 B ff.), 
whether it be the cultivation of the character by music 
and gymnastics, which accustoms a man to do what is 

' The chief passages in sup- 
port of this are : Ph(sdr. 265 C 
ff. ; Be^. vii. 533 C f ., 637 C, vi. 



611 


B; 


Farm. 


135 


Ci 


; Soph. 


251 


ff.; 


PoUt. 


262 


ff.j 


PhiUh. 


16 B ff. 











140 PLATO. [§42 

right and love what is beautiful ; or the cultivation 
of thought by the mathematical sciences, which are 
mainly concerned in leading men from what is sensuous 
to what is not sensuous. The peculiar organ of philo- 
sophy is the art of thinking by concepts (that is, dialec- 
tic), and ideas are the essential object of this thought. 

§ 43. Dialectic, or the Doctrine of Ideas, 

Socrates had explained that only the knowledge of 
concepts guarantees a true knowledge. Plato goes 
further, and maintains that it is only by reflection in 
concepts, in the forms of things, or ' ideas,' that true 
and original Being can be attained. This principle arose 
out of the Socratic, owing to the presupposition in which 
Plato agrees with Parmenides (see supra, p. 61), that 
only Being, as such, can be known ; the truth of our con- 
ceptions therefore is conditioned by the reality of their 
object, and keeps step with it. (' Kep.' v. 476, E tf., vi. 
511 D; 'Theset.' 188 D. f.) What is thought, there- 
fore, must be as distinctly separated from what is 
presented as thinking from forming presentations. 
(' Tim.' 51 D.) From this point of view the reality of 
ideas becomes the necessary condition of the possibility 
of scientific thought.' The same result follows from 
the contemplation of Being as such. All that we 
perceive, as Heracleitus had shown, is subject to cease- 
less change, it is ever alternating between two opposite 
conditions, and exhibits none of its qualities pure and 

' Parvi. 135 B. elf f4 ris 5)j kKamov r^v avrriv ad di'ai, Ka\ 

. . . aZ fJ.^ edaei efSrj twv ovroiv ovtw r^v tov dia\4yiadai Sivu/Jiiv 

fit/at . . . oi/Sc HiroL Tp^xpei t^v TravrdTraai 5ia(pdfpti, 
Sidyoiav (^fi, fi^ iwv i5(av rwv tvTwv 



§4a] PL AT as DIALECTIC. 141 

entire. That only can be lasting, consistent, and free 
from admixture with everything else which is inacces- 
sible to the senses, and known by thought only. All 
that is individual has number and parts ; but individual 
things become that which they are only by the 
common nature which is apprehended in the concept. 
All that is phenomenal has its object in a Being; it is 
so, because it is good that it should be so (the world, as 
Anaxagoras and Socrates taught, is the work of reason), 
and in like manner all our activity should be directed to 
some rational aim. These objects can only lie in the 
realisation of that in which thought discovers the 
unchangeable originals of things — in concepts.^ Hence, 
in the belief of Plato, we are compelled on every ground 
to distinguish the non-sensuous essence of things as 
the only true Being from their appearance as objects 
of sense. 

As is clear from what we have said, Plato sees this 
essence of things in their form (sZSoy, Ihia — the two are 
identical in meaning), Le, in the general, in that which 
is found in common in a series of individual things, and 
makes up the concept common to them all. ' AVe 
assume one idea when we denote a number of separate 
thiags by one name ' (' Eep.' x. 596 A, cf. vi. 507 B ; 
* Thec^t.' 185 B f. ; ' Parm.' 132 C ; Arist. ' Metaph.' xiii. 
4, 1078 b. 30, i. 9, 990 b. 6, &c.) ; on the other hand, a 
separate thing as such (as perhaps the soul, of which 
Kitter and others believed this to hold good) can never 

» PTusdo, 74, A fP., 78 D f., 97 B ; Thecet. 176 E ; Arist. Me- 

B-103 C ; Bep. v. 478 E ff., vii. tajyh. i. 6, init. ; xiii. 9, 1086 a, 

623 C ff., X. 596 A ; Tim. 27 E. fE., 35 fil, cf. i. 9, 990 b. 8 if. 
68 E ; rurm. 131 E ; Phileb. 54 



14S PLAtO. r§4a 

be an idea. But according to Plato, whose contention 
with Antisthenes turns on this point (see p. 118), this 
universal does not exist merely in our thought or in 
the thought of the Deity.* It exists purely for itself 
and in itself, and is always in the sanie form, subject 
to no change of any kind ; it is the eternal pattern of 
that which participates in it, but separate from it 
{^(opls)^ and only to be contemplated with the intelli- 
gence (' Symp.' 211 A ; « Phsedo,' 78 D, 100 B ; « Farm.' 
135 A ; «Eep.' vi. 507 B ; « Tim.' 28 A, 51 B f.) ; the 
' ideas ' are as Aristotle is accustomed to denote them, 
'X^copLo-rd ; and it is due to this independent existence 
that they are the only true and original elements of 
reality, to which everything that becomes or changes 
owes what reality it possesses. They are named the 
ovala, the ovrcos 6V, o sariv 6v, the self-existence, or 
the essence (an sich) of things,^ and because there is 
only one idea of each class of things (* Farm.' 131 E, 
132 C ; « Eep.' vi. 493 E, 507 B), ideas are also termed 
svdBs9 or /jbovdSs9 ('Phileb.' 15 A f.). Thus they are 
opposed as having unity to the plurality of things, as 
unchangeable to change. If in the world of the senses 
we can with Heracleitus find nothing but a becoming, 

* An assumption which has Parm. 133 D ; <X(pa7pa avr^i tj Qda, 

had many adlierents from the PMleb. 62 A ; avrh Ka\6y, &c. o 

time of the Neo-Pythngoreanand ^ariv eKaarov, Bcj). vi. 507 B: 

Neo-Platonic schools till now. hence in Aristotle not only aurb rb 

Plato expressly opposes it : Parm. aya66u, kc, bat also avrd ayadhv, 

132 1); I'im. 51 B; and Pep. avrh Ik koI ov, and in a word 

X. 597 B cannot be quoted in its avTodvOpwiros, avroayadSu, aino- 

favour. evi(TTr]UT], avro^Kaarov, ScQ. Cf. 

2 avrh %Ka<TTOV, avrh rh Ka\6v, Bonitz, Ind. Arist. 124 b. 62 flF., 

ahrl rh 6.yaQ6u, Phado, 65 D, 78 D ; 123 b. 46 ff. 
ourbs StcnroTTjs % eCTt Seo-Tr^TTji, 



§43] PLATO'S DIALECTIC. 143 

ideas present to us Being, in which alone Plato, like 
Parmenides whom he so highly honoured, found the 
real object of science. But he does not regard this 
Being as admitting no distinctions, like the Being of 
the Eleatics ; in the * Sophist' (244 B ff., 251 ff.) he 
shows that everything that has Being, as a definite 
object, includes in spite of its unity a plurality of 
qualities, and in being distinct from everything else it 
possesses an infinite amount of not-being (i.e» other- 
being). Hence in every concept we must ask what are 
the other concepts with which it can or cannot combine, 
and in the * Parmenides' Plato indirectly contradicts both 
the assumption that there is only plurality without unity, 
and the assumption that there is only unity without 
plurality. In his later period he followed the Pytha- 
goreans in designating the ideas as numbers (cf. § 50). 
This form of exposition is not found in his writings, 
though he approaches to it in the ' Philebus' (14 C), 
where with a distinct reference to the Pythagorean 
doctrine (and Philolaus more particularly) he arguesthat 
not only things but also the unified eternal essences 
consist of one and many, and are at once limited 
and unlimited. In the same way the un changeability 
of ideas must not be taken to mean that it is impos- 
sible to conceive them as the causes of what becomes 
and changes. It is only from them that what is change- 
able receives the Being which it possesses, and in the 
< Phaedo ' (99 D fif.) Plato actually denotes the ideas 
as the causes by which all that is, is. According to 
'Rep.' vi. 508 E, vii. 517 B, the idea of good is the 
cause of all perfection, of all Being and knowledge, but 



144 TLATO. [§4S 

the Divine reason is coincident with the good (* Phil.' 
22 C), and in the ' Philebus ' the * cause ' from which 
comes all order and reason in the world occupies the 
place elsewhere taken by the ideas (' Phil.' 23 C f., 26 
E f., 28 C ff.). Still more definitely does the 
'Sophist' show that true Being is regarded as operative 
force, to which therefore motion, life, soul, and reason 
must be assigned (248 A ff.). How this can be har- 
monised with the unchangeability of ideas Plato has 
not attempted to show, and with him this dynamic 
conception of ideas as operative powers must be kept 
in the rear of the nntological conception, in which they 
are the unchangeable forms of things. 

As the ideas are nothing else than general ideas 
raised to a separate existence as metaphysical realities, 
there must be ideas of everything which can be referred 
to a general concept, and denoted by a corresponding 
word. This conclusion was drawn by Plato. In his 
writings we find ideas of all possible things, not of 
substances only, but of qualities, relations and activi- 
ties ; not of natural things only, but of the creations 
of art ; not only of what is valuable, but of what is 
bad and contemptible. We find the great-in-itself, 
the double-in-itself, the name-in-itself, the bed-in- 
itself, the slave-in-himself ; the *idea' of filth, injus- 
tice, not-being, &c. It was not till his later period 
that Plato limited ideas to natural objects (cf. p. 142). 
All these ideas stand in a definite relation to one 
another, and to set their relation forth systematically 
m the mission of science (see p. 138). Yet not only is 
the thought of an a priori construction of this system of 



§43] PLATO'S DIALECTIC. 146 

concepts unknown to Plato, but he hardly makes any at- 
tempt to set it forth logically. It is only of the supreme 
apex, which as such is called the ' idea of good,' that 
he speaks at length (< Kep.' vi. 504 E ff., vii. 517 B). 
All that is in the world is as it is, because it is best so ; 
and it is only really conceived when it is referred to 
the good as its final object (* Phsedo,' 97 B). For 
Plato this thought assumes the shape that the good is 
the final ground of ail Being and knowledge ; it is the 
idea of good which, elevated above both, gives to the 
existent its reality and to him who knows his capacity 
for reason and his knowledge. For Plato, therefore, the 
good as the absolute ground of all Being is coincident 
with the Deity, which is described precisely as Being 
(* Tim.' 28 C, 37 A), and is explained to be identical 
with it (' Phileb.' 22 C, cf. Stob. ' Eel.' i. 58). But the 
question whether the good, which like all ideas is a 
universal, and as the highest idea must be the most 
universal and the highest class, can be at once the Deity, 
and thus become a person, Plato never raised ; indeed 
he never inquired about the personality of God. 

§ 44. Plato' 8 Physics^ Matter, and the World-soul. 

Though each idea is one, the things which come 
under it are infinite in number ; though the ideas are 
eternal and unchangeable, things are regarded as deri- 
vative, perishable, and in constant change ; though the 
idea is what it is, pure and complete, things are never 
BO. Ideas possess complete Being, but things waver 
between Being and not-being, just as presentation, of 



146 PLATO, t§ 44 

wtich they are the object, wavers between knowledge 
and ignorance. This incompleteness of sensuous exist- 
ence, Plato believes, can only be explained from the fact 
that it only springs in part from the idea, while part 
of its origin is derived from another and different 
principle. As all that it possesses of reality and com- 
pleteness springs from the idea, the nature of the 
second principle can only be sought in that which 
distinguishes the phenomena of sense from the idea. 
It can only be thought of as unlimited, ever-changing, 
non-existent, and unknowable. These are the de- 
finitions which Plato ascribes to that basis of sensuous 
existence which, following Aristotle, we are accustomed 
to call the Platonic ' matter.' He describes it as the 
unlimited (' Phil.' 24 A ff.), or, as he asserted later 
(according to Aristotle), as the great and small ; as 
that which is in itself formless, but lies at the base of 
all the changing forms of phenomena, and includes 
them ; as space (^odpa) which allows room to all that 
becomes ; as something which cannot be known by 
thought or perception, or presentation, but about which 
only laborious conclusions can be drawn (by a Xoyicr/jibs 
voOos^ ' Tim.' 49 A to 52 D). It harmonises with this, 
that Plato is said, according to Aristotle ^ and Hermo- 
dorus (ap. Sirapl. ' Phys.' 248, 13), to have spoken of it 
simply as not-being. For Leucippus and Democritus 
had already placed empty space on an equality with 
not-being, and if Being and not-being are mingled in 
sensuous things, and all the Being is derived from the 

» Phys. i. 9, 191 b. 36; 192 a. mus in Simpl. Phys. 431. 8, and 
6 ; cf . ii. 2. 201 b. 20. Eude- also Tim. 52 E. 57 E. 



§44] PLATO'S PHYSICS, 147 

idea, only not-being is lefb for the second constituent 
element, or matter. If true being (according to ' Eep.' 
V. 477 A) is the object x)f knowledge by thought, and 
that which hovers between Being and not-being is the 
object of presentation and perception, that which cannot 
be known in either way must be not-being. Hence by 
Plato's matter we have to understand not a mass filling 
space but space itself. He never mentions it as that 
out of which but only that in which things arise. 
According to him (cf. § 45), bodies are formed when 
certain portions of space are thrown into the shapes of 
the four elements. That it is not a corporeal mass out of 
which they arise in this manner is clear from the assertion 
that when they change into one another they are broken 
up into their smallest plane dimensions in order to be 
compounded anew out of these. To carry this theory 
out strictly was difficult ; and in another place (' Tim,' 
30 A, 52 D f., 69 B) he represents the matter as if the 
Deity, when engaged in the formation of the elements, 
had found * all that is visible ' already in existence as a 
chaotic mass moving without rule. But this description 
cannot in any case be taken strictly, for it would not suit 
with a mass which fills space, but is otherwise without 
form and definition ('Tim.' 49 E ff.). If we must make 
some distinction between this form of exposition and 
Plato's own opinion, there is nothing to prevent us 
from supposing that the condensation of space into 
matter is one of those mythical traits in which the 
* Timseus ' is so rich. 

Though it is said to be not-being which distinguishes 
things from ideas, the real in both is the same. Things 



148 PLATO. [§44 

owe all the being tliey have to the presence {wapovald) 
of ideas and to their participation in them (fisOs^cs, 
Koivwvla). But as, on the other hand, * not-being ' is 
the source of all the qualities by which the corporeal 
is distinguished from the incorporeal, we must recog- 
nise in them a second kind of causality besides that of 
the ideas and the causality of a blind, irrational neces- 
sity, which is related, not to the natural aims, but to 
the conditions of their realisation, and limits reason in 
realising them Q Tim.' 46 C f., 48 A, 56 C ; ' Phaedo,' 98 
B ff.). Besides that which things bring into life from 
ideas, there is in them a second element to which we 
must also attribute a being, only of a different kind from 
the being of ideas. Ideas and things appear separate 
from another : the first are the patterns {TrapaBsLyfiara, 
'Theset.' 176 E, 'Tim.' 28 C, &c.), these are the copies. 
From this point of view the Platonic system, though 
not pantheistic — for the numerous ideas are not parts 
or emanations of a supreme idea — is nevertheless 
monistic. It is a pure idealism, for things are im- 
manent in ideas. From the other point of view it is 
dualistic, for ideas are separate from things and things 
from ideas. But its peculiar nature can only be 
recognised when it is known why Plato did not aban- 
don one or the other of these views, or carry neither 
out without regard to the other, or attempt to unite 
both into an harmonious whole. 

If the corporeal is separated from the idea by such 
a wide interval as Plato assumes, an intermediating 
member is needed to combine the two, and this member 
can only be the soul. The soul alone, as the element 



§44] FLAias PHYSICS. 149 

whicli moves itself, can be the source of movement 

and ]iie(^ap')(ri /civijascos) for the corporeal world. Only 
by its intervention can reason be planted in the world, 
and the order of the universe, the power of thought 
and presentation in individual natural beings, be brought 
about {' Phaed.' 245 C, ' Laws,' x. 891 E ff., ' Phileb.' 30 
A f., ' Tim.' 30 A). The ' Timseus ' gives a description 
of the formation of the world-soul, in which, veiled amid 
much that is fantastic, the true meaning seems to be that 
the soul stands midway between ideas and the corporeal 
world, and unites both. It is incorporeal and ever the 
same, like ideas, but spread abroad through the world, 
and moving it by virtue of its own original motion. 
It includes in itself all the relations of number and 
measure ; it creates all the regularity and harmony of 
the world. All reason and knowledge in the universe 
and in the individual are caused by its rationality and 
knowledge. The question of its personality is obviously 
not so much as raised by Plato. In the ' Philebus ' {25 
A ff.) the same position which is here taken by the 
world-soul is assumed by the ' Limit ' {iripas) — which is 
also said to be the basis of all order and measure — and 
in the Aristotelian account of the Platonic doctrines (see 
infra, § 50), by ' mathematics,' the study of which even 
in Plato himself forms the transition to the study 
of ideas. Here, however, the form, in the soul the 
moving and enlivening power, is the connecting link 
between idea and phenomenon. But though Plato has 
not put them both on the same level, their close rela- 
tionship cannot be mistaken. 



160 PLATO, [I i5 

§ 45. The Universe and its Parts, 

In order to explain the world from its ultimate 
sources, Plato in his ' Timseus ' avails himself of the cus- 
tomary form of a cosmogony. He represents the creator 
of the world {Srj/juLoupyo^) as compounding the soul of 
the world from its constituent elements in reference to 
the pattern of the living being (the avro^wov). Then 
he takes the matter of the world in the shape of the 
four elements, and out of these finally constructs the 
world, and peoples it with organic creatures. But not 
only are the details of this exposition mythical to a 
great extent, but the whole is cast in such a mythical 
form that it is difficult to state accurately how much 
of it expresses Plato's own scientific conviction. 
That he recognises the true cause of the world in 
reason, in ideas, and the deity, is beyond doubt, but 
the distinction of the creator from the ideas (or more 
exactly from the highest of the ideas) is part of the 
exoteric traits (cf. p. 144), Though he does not appear 
consciously to use the notion of a beginning of the 
world in time as a mere form for clothing the thought 
of the dependence of all things upon ideal sources, 
yet this notion is in striking contradiction to other 
definitions in his doctrine, especially to the eternity of 
the human spirit. We must therefore assume that in 
this notion he is chiefly occupied with that idea, but 
whether the origin of the world in time is necessary 
for his object, or in itself conceivable, he has not in- 
quired. The more important in his eyes is the Uni- 
versal. As the work of reason the world is oon- 



[§45 THE UNIVERSE AND ITS FARTS, 161 

structed wifh an object. Phenomena can only be truly 
explained by final causes, for material causes are merely 
the conditions without which they are impossible. 
Plato therefore places a much higher value on the 
teleological than on the physical view of nature, and 
in the 'Timseus' he expresses this by the external 
separation of the two, and the precedence given to 
the first. 

The first step towards the construction of a world was 
the formation of the material, the four elements. For 
these Plato gives two sources. From the teleological 
point of view he requires fire and earth as a condition of 
the visibility and tangibility of bodies ; and he also de- 
mands a link between the two, which must consist of two 
proportionals, because we have here to do with bodies j 
and with Philolaus (p. 53) he denotes four of the five 
regular bodies as the base-forms of fire, air, water, and 
earth; then, passing beyond Philolaus, he constructs 
these bodies from the most minute right-angled tri- 
angles, out of which their limiting planes are composed. 
When the elements pass into one another (as is possible 
only among the three higher) they are decomposed into 
the triangles, and formed anew out of them (p. 147). 
Each element has a natural locality towards which it 
strives ; and all the space in the world is entirely filled 
by the whole sum of them. 

The world is regarded by Plato as a complete orb ; 
the earth is a solid orb resting in the middle ; the stars 
are fixed in spheres or rings (as seems to be the case 
with the planets), by the revolution of which they are 
carried round. When all the stars return to their 



IfflB PLATO. [§45 

original position, the great world-year (of 10,000 years) 
has run its course. With this cycle Plato possibly 
connects those devastations of the earth by fire and 
water which he assumes in the 'Timaeus' (22 C ff.) 
and the ' Laws ' (iii. 677 A ff.). The stars are rational 
blessed creatures, the ' visible gods,' and in like manner 
the Cosmos is the one perceivable god, including in 
himself all other natures, the copy of the super-sensuous, 
the most perfect and glorious of created things. 

§ 46. Plato's Anthropology, 

It is part of the perfection of the world that it, like 
its pattern, the avro^^ovy includes in itself all kinds of 
living beings. But of these man only has an inde- 
pendent interest for Plato ; on plants and animals he 
merely bestows a few occasional remarks of no great 
importance. In the ' Timseus ' he enters into special 
detail about the human body ; yet few of these physio- 
logical assumptions stand in any close connection with 
the Platonic philosophy. The soul of man is in its 
nature homogeneous with the soul of the universe, 
from which it springs ('Phil.' 30 A, 'Tim.' 41 D f., 
69 C f.). Being of a simple and incorporeal nature 
it is by its power of self-movement the origin of motion 
in the body; inseparably connected with the idea of 
life it has neither end nor beginning.^ As the souls 
have descended from a higher world into the earthly 
body, they return after death, if their lives have been 

> According to Phcedr. 245 PTicedo^ 102 ff. Otherwise in the 
f ., Meiw^ 86 A, and what follows Timceus, but cf. p. 149. 
from the proof of immortality in 



§46] PLATO'S ANTHROFOLOOT, 153 

pure and devoted to higher objects, to this higher 
world, while those who need correction in part undergo 
punishments in another world, and in part migrate 
through the bodies of men and animals. In its earlier 
existence our soul has seen the ideas of which it is 
reminded by the sight of their sensuous copies.^ The 
further discussion of these principles Plato has given 
in mythical expositions, in regard to which he indicates 
himself that he ascribes no scientific value to the 
details, which vary greatly. Yet they express his con- 
viction, and it is only in regard to the migration of 
souls that the question arises whether he seriously 
assumed the entrance of human souls into the bodies of 
animals. On the other hand, the attempt to disclaim 
for Plato the assumption of personal immortality and 
pre-existence ^ compels us not only to alter the explana- 
tions and proofs of the philosopher in the most unjusti- 
fiable manner, or explain as merely metaphorical and 
conventional what he declares to be his most distinct 
scientific conviction ; it also overlooks the fact that the 
belief in immortality in Plato is closely connected 
through the doctrine of reminiscence with his theory 
of knowledge, through the assumption of future retri- 
bution with his ethics and theology, through the oppo- 
sition between the intellectual, which is eternal, and 
the corporeal, which is perishable, with his entire meta- 
physics. 

» The proofs for what is said 80 D fE. ; Rep. x. 608 C ff ; Tim. 41 

above are found— besides the D ff. 

Fhcedo, where five proofs are * Teichmiiller, Studien z'urr 

given for immortality— -in PA^^r. Qeich. der Begriffe (1875) s. 107 

246 fE.j Gorg. 623 fE.; 3Ien0t ff.; Bie jalatoiiische Frage, 1876. 



154 PLATO, [§ 46 

In accordance with these views Plato can only look 
for the peculiar essence of the soul in its intellectual 
nature, its reason (XoyicmKQv, ' Phileb.' 22 C ; vovs). It 
alone is the divine and immortal part of it ; not till it 
has entered the body is it connected with the mortal 
part, which again falls into two sections, courage (dvfios, 
OvfjLosihis) and the desires (to sTridv/MrjTLfcov — also cpiXo- 
XPV/^cLTov). Eeason has her seat in the head, courage 
in the heart, desire in the lower body ('Eep.' iv. 435 B 
ff. ; 'Tiiii-.' 69 C f., 72 D ; 'Phsedr.' 246). But in what 
relation the unity of personal life stands to this triple 
division of the soul, to which part self-consciousness and 
volition belong, how there can be an inclination to the 
world of sense in a soul which is free from corporeal ele- 
ments, how bodily conditions and procreation can have 
the deep influence on the characters of men which Plato 
ascribes to them — on these questions Plato gives us no 
help. Nor do we find in him any inquhies into the 
nature of self-consciousness and the will, and if he 
assumes clearly the freedom of the will ('Eep.' x. 617 E, 
619 B; 'Tim.' 4 E ff . ; « Laws,' x. 904 B), yet we have 
no indication how we are to unite with this the Socratic 
principle, equally distinctly expressed, that no one is 
voluntarily evil (' Tim.' 86 D fif. ; ' Laws,' v. 731 C ; 734 
B, ix. 860 D ff.; «Meno,' 77 B £f., «Prot.' 345 P, 
358 B). 

§ 47. Plato's Ethics. 

Plato's Ethics received their scientific form and ideal 
character from the connection into which the ethical 
principles of his teacher were brought with his own 



§47] PLATO'S ETHICS, 356 

metaphysics and anthropology. As the soul in its true 
nature belongs to the world above the senses, and in 
that only can find a true and lasting existence, the 
possession of the good or happiness which forms the 
final goal of human effort can only be obtained by 
elevation into that higher world. The body, on the 
other hand, and sensual life, is the grave and prison of 
the soul, which has received its irrational elements 
through combination with it, and is the source of all 
desires and all disturbances of intellectual activity. 
The true mission of man, therefore, lies in that escape 
from this world, which the ' Thesetetus,' 176 A, regards 
as an approach to the divine nature, that philosophic 
death to which the 'Pheedo' reduces the life of the 
philosopher (64 A-67 B.) But, on the other hand, 
so far as the visible is a copy of the invisible, it is a 
duty to use the sensuous phenomenon as a means for 
obtaining an intuition of the idea, and to introduce 
the ideas into objects of sense. This is the point of 
view from which Plato proceeds in his principles about 
Eros (p. 138), and in the inquiry in the ' Philebus ' into 
the summum bonum (the result is given in ^ Phil.' 
61 ff.) ; for even though he seeks the most valuable 
part of the good in reason and insight, he desires to 
adopt into his conception not only knowledge gained by 
experience, right presentation, and art, but also pleasure 
so far as this is compatible with health of mind ; just 
as, on the other hand, when treating of pain (' Eep.' 
X. 603 E f.), he does not require insensibility, but 
mastery of and moderation in feeling. As in this he 
recognises the importance of externals for men, so 



166 PLATO. [§ 47 

the essential condition of his happiness is, in Plato, 
exclasively his intellectual and moral nature, his virtue. 
This is so not only owing to the reward which is as- 
sured to virtue in this world and the next, but the just 
man would be absolutely happier than the unjust if he 
were treated by gods and men like the unjust, and the 
unjust received the reward of the just. To do in- 
justice is worse than to suffer injustice; and to be 
punished for a misdeed is better than to go unpunished. 
For as being the beauty and health of the soul, virtue 
is at once happiness ; it brings its reward with it as 
vice brings its punishment. It is the rule of the divine 
in men over the animal, and as such the only thiag 
which makes us free and rich, and assures us lasting 
peace and repose of mind (* Grorg.' 504 A ff. ; ' Eep.' i. 
353 A ff., iv. 443 C ff., ix. 583 B ff., x. 609 B ff., 
'Theset.' 177 B ff. &c.) 

In his theory of virtue, Plato at first adhered closely 
to Socrates. Ordinary virtue he does not recognise as 
virtue at all, because it is not founded on insight, but, 
on the contrary, he reduces all virtues to insight, and 
maintains that not only are they one, but they can be 
taught. This view is found in the ' Laches,' ' Charmides,' 
and ' Protagoras ' (cf. p. 137). But even in the ' Meno ' 
(96 D ff.) he allows that besides knowledge right pre- 
sentation can incite us to virtue, and in the ' Eepublic * 
(ii. 376 E, iii. 401 B f., 410 B ff.) he recognises in 
this incomplete virtue, which rests merely on habit and 
right presentation, the indispensable preparation for the 
higher virtue which is founded on scientific knowledge. 
But now he not only allows that the capacities for 



§47] PLATO'S ETHICS 167 

morality, the quiet and eager temperament {aaxfypoa-vvr) 
and dvSpsla, 'Polit.' 306 f.), sensuality, force of will, 
and power of thought ('Eep.' iii. 415, iv. 435 E, vi. 
487 A) are unequally apportioned in individuals and 
whole nations, but his psychology makes it also pos- 
sible for him to combine a plurality of virtues with the 
unity of virtue, inasmuch as he assigns to each of the 
principal virtues a special place in the soul. Of these 
principal virtues he enumerates four, which he is the 
first to establish and explain, just as the number also 
appears to have been first fixed by him. Wisdom con- 
sists in the right quality of the reason. When the spirit 
maintains the decision of the reason on that which is 
or is not to be feared, and against pleasure and pain, 
we have courage ; self-control {acocppocrvvTj) means the 
harmony of all the parts of the soul on the question 
which is to command and which is to obey; and 
justice is the whole extent of this relation, when every 
part of the soul fulfils its mission and does not overstep 
it (' Eep.' iv. 441 C &.), Plato has not attempted to 
develop this scheme into a complete system of ethics : 
in his occasional expressions on moral activities and 
duties he puts the ethics of his people before us in its 
noblest form ; and if he sometimes goes beyond it, as 
in forbidding us to do evil to an enemy, yet in other 
respects, as in his conception of marriage, his contempt 
of manual labour, and his recognition of slavery, he is 
unable to break through its fetters. 



158 PLATO. t§ 48 

§ 48. Plato's Politics. 

It is a truly Hellenic trait in Plato's Ethics that 
they are closely connected with his Politics. But 
while the old Greek conception allows moral duties to 
pass almost entirely into political, Plato, on the con- 
trary, carries back political duties to moral. He is 
convinced with Socrates that man should labour first 
for himself, and only in the second place for the com- 
munity (' Symp.' 216 A). Under existing circum- 
stances he finds no room for the philosopher to take a 
part in politics ('Eep.' 488 A ff.), and evea in the 
ideal State he regards such participation as a sacrifice 
which he offers to the community ('Rep.' 519 C ff., 
347 A f., 500 B). The civic life is as a rule mainly 
necessary because it is the only means to maintain 
virtue in the world and raise it to the sovereign place 
(*Rep.' 490 E ff.). Thus the essential object of this 
life is virtue, and the happiness of the citizens ; its 
chief mission is the education of the people in virtue 
V'G-org.' 464 B f., 521 D ff. ; 'Polit.' 309 C, 
' Rep.' 500 D, &c.). Though in the first instance it 
arises out of physical needs (* Rep.' 369 B fif.) a society 
which was limited to the satisfaction of those needs 
(like the ' natural state ' of the Cynics) does not deserve 
the name of a State ('Rep.' 372 D ; ' Polit.' 272 B). 
All true virtue rests in scientific knowledge and philo- 
sophy. Thus the first condition of every sound polity is 
the dominion of philosophy, or, which comes to the 
same thing, the rule of the philosopher (' Rep.' 473 
C; 'Polit.' 293 C). This rule must be absolute and 



§48] PLATO'S POLITICS, 169 

can only be entrusted to the few who are capable of it, 
for philosophy is not a matter for the multitude 
('Polit/ 293 A; « Eep.' 428 D). The constitution of 
the Platonic State is therefore an aristocracy, the abso- 
lute rule of the competent persons, or philosophers, 
restrained by no law ('Rep.' 428 E, 433 ff . ; « Pol it.' 
294 A ff., 297 A ff.). In order to give the ruling 
order the necessary power, and to protect the State ex- 
ternally, the order of warriors (^cpijXaKss, sirL/covpot) must 
be added to it as a second ; while the mass of the popu- 
lation, the agriculturists, and artisans, form a third 
order excluded from all political activity and confined to 
the acquisition of money ('Rep.' 373 D ff.). This 
separation of orders Plato founds on the principle of the 
division of labour, but its special motive lies in the con- 
viction that only a minority are capable of cultivation 
for the higher political functions ; and inasmuch as he 
also presupposes (Rep. 415 f.) that the capacity for 
these functions is as a rule hereditary, the division of 
the three orders approaches to a distinction of castes. 
Plato himself compares them to the three parts of the 
soul, and apportions the virtues of the community to 
them, as he had apportioned the virtues of the individual 
to the three parts of the soul (427 D ff.). But in 
order that the two higher classes may discharge their 
mission satisfactorily (the aristocratic philosopher cares 
little for the third order and its banausic arrange- 
ments) their education and the arrangements of their 
life must be entirely conducted by the State, and 
directed to its aims. The State takes care that the 
citizens shall be begotten by the best parents under 



180 PLATO. [§48 

the most favourable circumstances ; it gives them by 
music (cf. p. 162) and gymnastic an education, in which 
even the women participate, just as they subsequently 
share in civic and martial duties. It trains the future 
governors by mathematical sciences and dialectic for 
their duties, in order that after many years of practical 
activity, when they have been approved on every side, 
they may in their fiftieth year be adopted into the 
highest order, the members of which conduct the 
management of the State in succession. For the rest 
of their lives they are compelled to belong wholly to 
this order, for by the removal of private property, and 
the family, the State cuts asunder the roots of those 
private interests which are the hereditary foes of the 
unity of the State. That Plato is quite in earnest 
with these proposals, and regards them not only as 
wholesome but as capable of being carried out, is be- 
yond a doubt. All other kinds of constitution, except 
his own, he regards as perversions (he enumerates six 
in « Pol.' 300 ff., and four in ' Eep.' viii., ix. ; cf. 'Eep.* 
449 A, &c.). This State cannot be explained merely by 
the pattern of Spartan or Pythagorean arrangements, or 
by opposition to the excesses of the Attic democracy ; 
the ultimate basis lies in the fact that the whole 
character of his system prevents the philosopher from 
seeing in the sensual and individual side of human 
existence anything more than a hindrance to true 
morality, and from regarding it as the means of realis- 
ing the idea. 



§49] PLATO'S RELIGION AND ART, 161 

§ 49. Plato's Vieiua on Religion and Art. 

Plato's attitude towards the religion and art of his 
nation is also determined by moral and political points 
of view. In an age when poets were theologians, and 
their works took the place of revealed documents — when 
the theatre bore an important part in religious worship 
— art and religion stood in the closest interconnection. 
Plato's own religion is that philosophic monotheism, in 
which the Deity coincides with the idea of good, the 
belief in providence with the conviction that the 
world is the work of reason and the copy of the idea, 
while divine worship is one with virtue and knowledge. 
His more popular utterances about Grod or the gods 
are conceived in the same sense. In regard to his 
belief in providence more especially and in his theory 
of divine justice, they pass the more easily beyond the 
strict consistency of his system, because he never 
critically compared the form of that belief in concep- 
tion and in presentation, and, above all, had never 
raised the question of the personality of God. Besides 
the deity in the absolute sense we find the ideas 
denoted as eternal gods, the Cosmos and the stars 
as visible gods, while the philosopher does not conceal 
the fact that he regards the gods of mythology as 
creatures of imagination (' Tim.' 40 D), and expresses 
himself very severely on the numerous immoralities of 
mythology, which are quite unworthy of divine beings 
(' Eep.' 377 E, &c.). Nevertheless, he wishes to retain 
the Hellenic religion as that of his State, and Hellenic 
myths as the first foundation of instruction, though 



162 PLATO. [§ 49 

these are to be purified from any harmful admixture. 
What he requires is not the expulsion but the reform 
of the national religion. 

Like religion, art is examined by Plato primarily 
with regard to its ethical effect. Precisely because he 
is himself a philosophic artist, he cannot properly esti- 
mate pure art, which subserves no other object. In 
the Socratic manner the conception of the beautiful is 
referred to the conception of the good without any 
more subtle analysis of its peculiar nature. He regards 
art as an imitation (/jLo/jiva-ts), not of the essence of 
things, but of their appearance to the senses ; and his 
objection to it is that, though it arises from a dim 
enthusiasm (/jiavia), it claims our sympathies equally 
for what is false or true, bad or good ; in many of its 
productions, as, for instance, in comedy, it flatters the 
lowest inclinations, and by its varied play endangers 
simplicity and directness of character. In order to 
attain to a higher position, art must enter into the 
service of philosophy, and be treated as a means of 
moral culture ; it must seek its highest mission in 
emphasising the goodness of virtue and the worthless- 
ness of vice. By this canon the public guidance and 
supervision is to be directed, to which Plato will sub- 
ject art, esj^ecially poetry and music, down to the 
minutest details, in his two great political works ; and 
this he himself applies when he banishes from his 
State not only all immoral and unworthy narratives 
about gods and heroes, but also all extravagant and 
effeminate music, and the whole body of imitative 
poetry, including Homer. In the same manner, Plato 



§49] PLATO'S BELIGION AND AET. 163 

requires that rhetoric, the ordinary practice of which 
is most emphatically condemned, shall be reformed 
and made a help to philosophy (cf. p. 138). 

§ 50. The later Form of the Platonic Doctrine, 
The < Laius: 

The system which is set before us in the Platonic 
writings down to the ' Timseus ' and * Critias * underwent 
considerable changes in the later part of Plato's life, 
perhaps after his return from his last Sicilian journey. 
According to Aristotle, Plato, when he heard him, 
confined the circle of ideas to the various kinds of 
natural objects. The ideas he denoted as numbers 
(p. 143), but distinguished these ideal numbers from 
the mathematical by the fact that the former do not 
consist of homogeneous unities, and therefore cannot 
be reckoned. From the ideal numbers proceed the 
ideal magnitudes, from the mathematical the mathe- 
matical magnitudes, mathematics occupying a place 
intermediate between the ideas and things in the 
world of sense (p. 149). Moreover, he did not now 
content himself with finding the ultimate basis of 
phenomena in ideas, but inquired into the constituent 
elements of the ideas (aroi'x^sta). These he found in 
the One, which he placed on the same level as the good, 
and the Unlimited, which he called the great and small 
{fjLsya fcal fiLKpov), because it is not limited upwards 
or downwards, and plurality or * undefined duality,' in 
as much as numbers arise from it. But in what rela- 
tion the unlimited element stood to that which is the 



164 PLATO. [§50 

basis of the corporeal world lie does not seem to haye 
inquired, and thus arose the appearance of its complete 
uniformity which Aristotle assumes.^ Like the Pytha- 
goreans, to whom he approaches in these doctrines, 
he distinguished the ^ther as a fifth body from the 
four elements. 

In the years to which this form of his doctrine be- 
longs, Plato made the attempt in his * Laws ' (cf. p. 131 ) 
to show how an essential improvement of political 
conditions could be brought about even under existing 
circumstances and without the hypotheses of the 
philosophical State, which he now thought it impossible 
to carry out. The dominion of philosophy, which in 
the * Republic ' is the only means of assisting humanity, 
is now abandoned ; in the place of the philosophical 
rulers, we have a board of the Wisest without definite 
magisterial duties ; and in the place of dialectic or 
scientific knowledge of laws we have mathematics and 
religion. This religion, it is true, is in harmony with 
Plato's principles, but it does not in any respect go 
beyond that improved and purified natural religion 
which in the ' Republic' is merely assigned to the masses 
as a compensation for dialectic. Nor can the conduct of 
the individual soul be handed over to wisdom in the 
higher sense. Its place is taken by practical insight 
((ppovTjcrts), which is hardly distinguished from So- 
phrosyne, while bravery is remarkably depreciated in 
comparison with both. Finally, in regard to the 

' The chief passages in Ari- the older Academy, bll Q. Platon. 

stotle are Mctaph. i. 6, 9, xiii. Studien, 217 ff., and Siisemihl, 

6, on which compare Alexander's Genet. EntiHokl. d. Plat. Phil, 

commentary. Further, Plato and 509 ff., 632 ff. 



§60] THE 'Laws: 166 

arrangements of the State, Plato in his later work does 
not abolish private property, but contents himself with 
limiting it by law, and retaining a fixed number of plots 
of land (5040); he does not now destroy the family, 
but carefully supervises marriages and domestic life. 
The principle of one public education for boys and girls 
alike is still maintained, and intercourse with foreign 
countries is carefully controlled and limited. Trade, 
business, and agriculture are the exclusive care of the 
metoeci and slaves, so that of the three orders of the 
republic only the second remains. As to the constitu- 
tion of the State, an equal combination of monarchical, 
or more properly oligarchical, and democratic elements 
is made the basis, while the organic regulations of the 
constitution, no less than the civic and penal laws, are 
carried out wisely and well with a solicitude which 
extends to the smallest details. Every law is preceded 
by an explanatory preamble, for men are not required 
to act out of blind obedience, but from their own con- 
viction- 

§ 51. Tlie Old Academy, 

The scientific society which Plato founded and 
conducted was carried on, after his death, in his Academy 
under special leaders, and it gave to succeeding ages 
the pattern for the organisation of scientific instruction. 
His first successor was Speusippus, the son of his sister, 
who was followed in 339 B.C. by his fellow-pupil Xeno- 
crates of Chalcedon. Among the other immediate 
pupils of Plato, the best known, excluding Aristotle, are 
Heraclides of Pontus, Philippus of Opus, Hestiseus of 



166 THE OLD ACADEMY, [§51 

Perinthus, Menedemus the Pyrrhsean. So far as we 
are acquainted with their views, all these men, adhering 
to Pythagoreanism, followed the direction which Plato's 
philosophy had taken in his latest period. Speusippus 
appears not only to have ascribed a greater value to 
knowledge gained by experience than Plato {sirKyTTj- 
lioviKTj alad7]<TLs)y but he entirely gave up in its 
Platonic form the doctrine in which Plato had come 
forward in the most diametrical opposition to the 
ordinary modes of presentation, by puttiDg mathe- 
matical numbers in the place of ideas. These numbers 
he regards as separate from things ; and a fragment of 
his on the ' Decas ' has quite a Pythagorean ring. Like 
Pythagoras, he denoted the unit and plurality as the 
most general sources of things ; but he distinguished the 
unit from the creative reason, which he conceived as 
the world-soul, and appears to have combined with the 
Pythagorean central fire, and from the Good, which was 
a result arising from the arrangement of the world. In 
the first instance he derived only the numbers from 
unity and plurality ; while for superficial magnitudes 
and for the soul he assumed analogous principles ; but 
it is at the same time recorded (Diog. iv. 2) that he 
combined the mathematical sciences closely together. 
With the Pythagoreans (and Plato) he added JEther to 
the four elements, and, perhaps for the sake of the 
migration of souls, he allowed the lower parts of the 
soul to continue beyond death. In his ' Ethics ' he 
followed the Platonic model, merely going beyond it 
in directly maintaining that pleasure was an evil. 

Xenocrates did not go quite so far in his approxi- 



§ 61] XENO CRA TES, 167 

mation to Pythagoreanism. He was a man of pure 
and noble character, but of melancholy humour, a 
copious author, and, without doubt, the chief repre- 
sentative of the Academic school, which he conducted 
till 313-4 B.C. He expressly distinguished the three 
chief parts of the philosophic system — dialectic, 
physics, and ethics — and was apparently the first to 
do so. In Pythagorean fashion he denoted as original 
sources the unit, or the odd, and the indefinite duality, 
or even, or, as he also expressed it, the father and the 
mother of the gods, inasmuch as he assimilated the unit 
to Nous or Zeus. Their first offspring were the ideas, 
which must be also mathematical numbers. In order 
to derive magnitudes from numbers, he assumes the 
most minute and indivisible lines. By the addition of 
the Same and the Other to number arises the (world) 
soul, which Xenocrates (on the ground of the * Timseus') 
defined as a number moving itself; but this origin of 
the soul he did not conceive as taking place in time, 
in which he was apparently influenced by Aristotle. 
The forces operating in the different parts of the 
world, in the sky, the elements, &c., he seems to have 
denoted as gods ; by the side of them he assumed, with 
the national religion and the Pythagoreans, the exist- 
ence of good and evil spirits. The elements, to which 
he also added ^Ether, he assumed to have arisen out of 
the smallest corpuscles. Like Speusippus, he allows 
the irrational parts of the human soul, and perhaps 
the souls of animals also, to survive death. He dis- 
couraged a meat diet because by that means the brute 
nature of animals might obtain au influence over U8« 



168 THE OLD ACADEMY [§51 

His ethical views were set forth in numerous treatises, 
and what we know of them shows that he remained 
true to the Platonic ethics. He placed happiness in 
' the possession of virtue and of the means which sub- 
serve it/ He distinguished more precisely than Plato 
between scientific and practical insight, and, like 
Aristotle, gives the name of wisdom to the first only. 

If we may judge from the Pseudo-Platonic ' Epi- 
nomis,' which was most probably his work, Philippus 
was rather a mathematician than a philosopher. In 
his view mathematics and astronomy secure us the 
highest knowledge : wisdom consists in acquaintance 
with them, and on them, combined with correct 
presentations about the heavenly deities, all piety 
depends. He follows Plato in rejecting the gods of 
mythology ; and on this account spirits are of the more 
importance in his eyes as the intermediaries in all 
intercourse with the gods. He divides them into 
three classes. On the other hand, he has but a poor 
opinion of human life and earthly things ; and appa- 
rently he first interpolated into the * Laws ' (x. 896 E ff.) 
the bad world-soul (988 D f.). It is by mathematics 
and astronomy, in addition to virtue, that we are raised 
above the misery of earthly existence and assured of a 
future return to heaven. The famous Eudoxus of 
Cnidus, who was also a mathematician, deviated far 
more than Philippus from the doctrine of Plato, whom 
he, like Archytas, had attended. He not only allowed 
the ideas to be mingled as matter in things, but be 
declared pleasure to be the highest good. Heratleidcs 
of Pontus, who opened a school of his own in his natir^ 



§51] EUDOXUS, POLEMO, ETC. 169 

city about 339 B.C., borrowed from the Pythagorean 
Ecphantus not only the assumption of small original 
corpuscles (avapfioi ojkol) out of which the divine 
intellect built the world, but also the doctrine of the 
daily revolution of the earth. The soul he regarded 
as composed of aethereal matter. We are also reminded 
of the Pythagoreans in the credulity with which this 
learned but uncritical writer accepted a belief in miracles 
and soothsaying. Of Hestiaeus we know that he busied 
himself with those metaphysical and mathematical 
speculations, of which Aristotle preserves a few, in 
addition to those quoted, without any mention of 
names. 

The successor of Xenocrates, Polemo the Athenian 
(died 270 B.C.) was held in repute as a moral philo- 
sopher. His ethical principles, in which he coincided 
with Xenocrates, were comprehended in the single 
requirement of a life according to nature. His most 
distinguished pupil was Grantor of Soli in Cilicia, 
who also belonged to Xenocrates, and died before 
Polemo. He was the first commentator on the 
' Timseus,' the psychogony in which he did not, like 
Xenocrates, regard as conceived in time, and also the 
author of famous ethical writings entirely in harmony 
with the doctrines of the Old Academy. After Polemo, 
Crates of Athens became the leader of the Academic 
school, and Arcesilaus (§ 78), the successor of Crates, 
gave an essentially altered character to its doctrines. 



170 ARISTOTLE, [§62 

IV. Aristotle and the Peripatetic School. 
§ 62, Aristotle^s Life, 

Aristotle was bom at Stagira, 01. 90, 1 (384 B.C.). 
His father Nicomachus was physician to Amyntas, King 
of Macedonia, but after the death of his parents 
Proxenus of Atarneus attended to his education. In 
his eighteenth year, 366-7 B.C., he came to Athens 
and entered the circle of the pupils of Plato, where he 
continued till Plato's death. This fact, combined with 
other ascertained data, is a sufficient contradiction of 
the assertion that Aristotle's disregard for his teacher 
and his ingratitude caused a difference between them 
for a long time before Plato's death. On the contrary, 
we may assume that Aristotle, during his twenty years 
of study at Athens, not only studied the pre-Platonic 
philosophy, but also laid the foundation for other his- 
torical knowledge. If in a series of writings he adhered 
to Plato in form and contents, he nevertheless ex- 
pressed in them his objections to the doctrines of ideas 
and his conviction of the eternity of the world. After 
Plato's death he repaired with Xenocrates to Atarneus 
in Mysia, to his fellow-pupil Hermias, the prince of 
that state, whose niece, or sister, Pythias, he subse- 
quently married. Three years later, after the fall of 
Hermias, he went on to Mitylene. Thence he appears 
to have returned to Athens, where he opened a school 
of rhetoric, in opposition to Isocrates. In 342 he 
obeyed a summons to the Macedonian court to under- 
take the education of Alexander, who at that time was 



§62] ARISTOTLE'S LIFE, 171 

on the tkreshold of his youth (born in 356 B.C.). Here 
he remained till Alexander set out on his Asiatic cam- 
paign : The beneficial influence of the philosopher on 
his brilliant pupil, and the respect of the pupil for his 
master, are celebrated by Plutarch, ' Alexander,' c. 8. 
Aristotle had to thank the favour of Philip or Alex- 
ander for the restoration of his paternal city, which 
PhiHp had destroyed. In the year 334 or 335 at the 
earliest, Aristotle returned to Athens and opened a 
school in the Lyceum which received the name of the 
Peripatetic, not from the place, but from Aristotle's 
habit of walking while giving instruction. His teach- 
ing extended to rhetoric as well as philosophy ; besides 
continuous lectures, dialogue was doubtless introduced, 
and the scientific society, like that of Plato, was at the 
same time a circle of friends with fixed common meals. 
With ample means of his own, and secure of royal 
assistance if he required it (apart from any later 
exaggerations), Aristotle was in a position to obtain all 
the assistance in his researches which his age could 
offer. Above all, he was the first to make a large 
collection of books. His writings are evidence of the 
extent to which he availed himself of these means. 
After the violent death of his nephew Callisthenes 
Aristotle's relations to Alexander were less harmonious ; 
but it is sheer calumny to ascribe to him a part in the 
supposed poisoning of Alexander, which is indeed a 
party fah^hood. The unexpected death of the king 
brought im into the most immediate danger, for on the 
outbreak )f the Lamian war he was attacked on a false 
charge of sacrilege, owing to political hatred, and fled 



172 ARISTOTLE. [§ 52 

to Chalcis in Euboea, where he fell sick and died in the 
summer of 322 B.C., a few months before Demosthenes. 
His character, which from a very early period was 
grievously traduced by his political and scientific op- 
ponents, appears in his writings as thoroughly noble, 
and there are no certain facts which give us any 
reason to doubt this impression. His scientific emi- 
nence is beyond a doubt ; and in the combination of 
an extraordinarily wide knowledge with indepeodent 
judgment, acute penetration, comprehensive specula- 
tion, and methodical inquiry, he stands alone, or if 
not alone, Leibnitz only can be compared with him in 
this respect. 

§ 53. Aristotle's Writings. 

Under the name of Aristotle a collection of writings 
has come down to us, which in all essentials un- 
doubtedly goes back to the edition of the Aristotelian 
writings published by Andronicus about 50-60 B.C. 
(Cf. § 82.) There is no doubt that the largest and 
most important part of these writings is genuine, 
though some of them are apparently not free from later 
additions and alterations. But besides the works which 
have survived we are acquainted with a large number 
of lost writings — of which, it is true, the greater part 
seem to be spurious — partly from the quotations of 
later writers, and partly from two lists whi h are still 
in existence. The older of these lists,* whicl seems to 
have been derived from the Alexandrian h ?rmippus 

' In Diog. V. 21 ff. and with na^ii, a biography 'f Aristotle, 
several omissions and additions apparently the woi .: of Hesy* 
in the so-called Anonj/mus Me- chius (about 600 a.e.) 



§53] ahistotle's wmriNGs, 173 

(about 200 B.C.), puts the total of tlie Aristotelian 
writings at nearly 400 books ; but as important works 
in our collection are not found in the list, it seems 
only to contain the works of Aristotle which were in 
the Alexandrian Library at the time of its compilation. 
The later list, which has come down to us in an in- 
complete state from Arabian writers, was compiled by 
Ptolemseus, apparently a Peripatetic of the first or 
second century a.d. It mentions nearly all the works 
in our collection, and (with Andronicus) reckons the 
books of the entire writings at 1,000. 

Our collection contains the following works : 

(1) Logical Treatises (first collected together in By- 
zantine times under the title ' Organon ') : * The Cate- 
gories,' apparently mutilated from c. 9, 11 b. 7, and 
enlarged by the addition of the so-called Post-predica- 
ments, c. 10-15, from a later hand; tt. sp/jLTjvslas (or 
on propositions), probably the work of a Peripatetic of 
the third century B.C. ; the two ' Analytics ' {avaXvTCKa 
TrpoTspa and varspa), of which the first deals with con- 
clusions, the second with proof ; the ' Topica,' which 
treats of dialectic, i.e. the art of the proof of probability; 
the last (ninth) book is generally quoted as a sepa- 
rate treatise, tt. aocj^taTCKcov iXsy^cov. 

(2) Treatises on Natural History: * Physics' 
((f)V(TLK7) a/cpoaats), in eight books, of which, however, 
the seventh book, though derived from an Aristotelian 
sketch, appears to be a later interpolation ; ' De Cselo,' 
four books ; ' About Origin and Decs^y,' tvvo books ; 
* Meteorology,' four books; the -"sipurious book irspl 
KoajjLov (see § 82). There are -^iso the investigations 



1?4 AmSTOTLB, [§ 53 

into the nature of living creatures, tlie three books on 
the soul, and the smaller treatises connected with them, 
from which we must separate the work Trspl irvEVfiaros 
as post-Aristotelian ; the comprehensive zoological 
treatises ; the description of animals (tt. ra ^(oa 
IcTTopiai) in ten books, or nine, if we deduct the spurious 
tenth book ; and the three systematic works : ' On the 
Parts of Animals,' four books ; * On the Progression of 
Animals;' *0n the Origin of Animals' (five books, of 
which, however, the fifth book seems to be a separate 
work), together with the spurious treatise irspl ^cocov 
Kivr)(7sco9. Whether Aristotle carried out a work which 
he contemplated on plants is not quite certain ; in any 
case the treatise tt. (fyurcov, which we have, is spurious. 
So also are the works tt. ')(^pa)/jLdT(ov, it. aKovcTTcjv^ 
9r. dau/jbacTLcov aKovcrfjidTcov, the ^vo-Loyvco/iLKa, the 
fiTj^ctviKa, and the treatise on indivisible lines (pro- 
bably the work of Theophrastus). Aristotle also wrote 
* Problems,' but in our thirty-seven books of problems 
the remains of the Aristotelian are buried beneath a 
mass of later additions. 

(3) The metaphysical writings of the philosopher 
which we possess are limited to the ' Metaphysics ' (ra 
fjLsra TO, ^vcTLfcd),^ which, so far as we can see, is a col- 
lection formed immediately after Aristotle's death of all 
that was found in his remains referring to the 'first 
philosophy ' (cf. § 54) ; its present name is due to its 
position in the collection of Andronicus. The bulk of 
it (b. i. iii. [B.\ iv. vi. — ix. x.) is formed by Ari- 

' Best editions and commentaries by Bonitz (1848) and 
Schwegler (1847 f.) 



§53] AniSTOTLE'S WHITINGS. 175 

stotle's incomplete work on the * First Philosophy,' 
in which the originally independent treatise which 
forms book v. has been incorporated. Book xi. 1 — 8, 
1065 a. 26, seems to be an older sketch which was 
changed afterwards into books iii. iv. vi. Books xiii. 
xiv. are discussions which were at first intended for one 
work, but subsequently rejected and in part embodied 
in books i. 6, 9. Book xii. is a separate treatise 
written before the main work, perhaps as a basis for 
lectures. Books ii. {a) and xi. (from c. 8, 1065 a. 2%) are 
confessedly spurious. The same is the case with the 
treatises on the Eleatic philosophy mentioned on p. 58. 
(4) Ethics are treated by Aristotle in the ten 
books of the so-called * Nicomachean Ethics,' in books 
v.-vii. of which additions greater or smaller seem to 
proceed from the Eudemian ; and Politics in the eight 
books of the 'Politics.' In the last-mentioned work 
not only do books vii. and viii. find their proper place 
between books iii. and iv., but much that is needed to 
complete the plan is wanting. Like the ' Metaphysics,' 
it seems to have been left a fragment owing to the death 
of the author. The ' Eudemian Ethics ' are a revision 
of the ' Aristotelian Ethics ' by Eudemus, but of this 
only books i.-iii. and vi. are preserved ; the ' Magna 
Moralia are a sketch compiled from both, but more 
especially from the Eudemian. The small treatise 
on * Virtues and Vices ' belongs to the period of later 
eclecticism. The first book of the ' (Economics,' which 
Philodemus (<De Vitiis,' col. 7, 27) ascribes to Theo- 
phrastus, is certainly not AristoteliaTi, and the second 
book is much later. 



176 AitlSTOTLB. [§58 

(5) On Rhetoric we have the three books of the 
* Rhetoric,' of which, however, the third does not seem to 
be the work of A. istotle ; on Poetry we have the Poetics, 
which as it now ' tands is only a part of an Aristotelian 
work in two books. The * Rhetoric to Alexander ' is an 
interpolation. 

All these treatises, so far as they are genuine, and 
unless intended by their author for his own private use, 
as was perhaps the case with ' Metaphysics ' xii., appear 
to have been didactic works which Aristotle wrote 
down for his pupils and imparted to them only. He 
seems to have had no thought of wider publication, 
and perhaps at first did not permit it. This is the 
conclupon we draw from the quotation of ' published 
works' (see infra), and more especially from the 
address to his pupils at the end of the ' Topica,' and 
from the numerous facts which show that the last 
hand of the author was wanting. ^Moreover, in some 
treatises which are demonstrably earlier in date, we 
find reference to later writings, which appear to have 
been added long after they were composed, but before 
they were published. Of the lost works the ^Avarofial, 
so often quoted by Aristotle himself, and the aarpo- 
XojLKa 6e(oprifjLaTa {' Meteor.' i. 3, 8. 339 b. 7. 345 b. 
1. «De Caelo,* ii- 10, 291 a. 29), besides the work 
on plants, belonged to these didactic treatises ; of the 
numerous other writings of the class, which are still 
mentioned, perhaps no single one was genuine. 

From the didactic writings of the Aristotelian 
school we mnst separate those which Aristotle himself 
calls *pubhshed' works (* Poetics,' 15, 1454 b. 17, 



§53] ARISTOTLirS WRITINGS. 177 

ekSsBo/jlsvol), and which apparently he means by the 
\6yot sv KocvM yiyvofisvoL (* De An.' i. 4, init.), and 
possibly by the syKv/cXta <f>iko<TO(f)rjiJbaTa (' De Caelo,' ii. 
9, 279 a. 30 ; ' Eth.' i. 3, 1096 a. 2)} Of these, however, 
none is expressly quoted in the books in existence, 
which are proved to be a connected whole by the 
numerous cross-references in them. All the writings 
of this class appear to have been composed before 
Aristotle's last residence in Athens ; a part of them 
were in the form of dialogue, and it can only be in 
reference to them that Aristotle is commended by 
Cicero and others for the copiousness and charm of his 
exposition, the 'golden stream of his speech.' Even 
among these there was at an early time much that was 
spurious.^ Among the dialogues was the ' Eudemus,' 
which in form and contents was an imitation of Plato's 
*Ph8edo,'and was apparently composed in 352 B.C. ; the 
three books on Philosophy, in which the criticism of 
the doctrine of ideas begins ; the four books on justice ; 
the three books irspl iroLyrcov. The remaining writings 
of the earlier period contained the ' Protrepticus,' the 
treatises on the Ideas and the Good, and accounts of 
the contents of the Platonic lectures, the ' History of 
Ehetoric ' {rsxvcov crvvaycoyrj), the ' Ehetoric,' dedicated 
to Theodectes, which, like the treatise irspl ^aaCkslasy 

» It is, however, doubtful view. Diels attacks it : SitzungS' 

whether the old commentators are her. d. Berl. Akad. 1883; Nr. 19. 
right in referring, after Andro- * The remains have been col- 

nicus, the H^utT^piKoX \6yoi, so lected by Rose in his Aristoteles 

often mentioned by Aristotle and Pseude^pigrajjhus, and the Berhn 

Eudemus, to a particular class of edition of Aristotle, p. 1474 JSE., 

Aristotelian writings. Bemays, by Heitz, vol. iv. b. of Didot's edi- 

with most scholars, defends this tion« 



178 ARISTOTLE. [§ 53 

dedicated to Alexander, must have been composed in 
Macedonia ; and the BtSaafcaXiai, besides which many 
works relating to poets and arts are mentioned — 
whether with good reason is very doubtful. On the 
other hand, the excerpts from some Platonic works, and 
the writings on the Pythagoreans and other philosophers, 
so far as they are genuine, are only sketches for private 
use, and the same is probably the case (as Heitz 
assumes) with the ' Polities,' a collection of accounts of 
158 Hellenic and barbarian cities from which numerous 
statements are preserved, the vofiiixa ^ap^apcKa and 
BoKaicofjiaTa rcov irokswv. 

How many of the Letters, which had been collected 
in eight books by Artemon even before Andi'onicus, 
are genuine, cannot be ascertained ; in what we know 
of the collection, there is much that is obviously 
interpolated, besides a good deal that may be genuine. 
We have no reason to doubt the genuineness of some 
small poems and fragments. 

As all or nearly all the didactic writings of Aristotle 
appear to have been composed in the last twelve years 
before his death, and present his system in the ripest 
form without any important variation in contents or 
terminology, the question of the order of composition 
becomes of little practical importance. Yet it is probable 
that the ' Categories,' the ' Topica,' and ih.e ' Analytics ' 
are the oldest parts of our collection ; these were followed 
by the ' Physics ' and the works which are connected with 
them, ^ext in order are the treatises on the soul and 
living creatures ; then the ' Ethics.' The ' Politics ' 
and 'Metaphysics ' (with the exception of the older 



§631 ARISTOTLE'S WRITINGS. 179 

portions incorporated in themj were then commence'^ 
but never completed, while the 'Poetics' and 'Ehe- 
toric,' though begun later, were finished The narra- 
tive given in Strabo (xiii. 1. 54) and Plutarch 
* Sulla,' 26), according to which the writings of Ari- 
stotle and Theophrastus were carried to Neleus at 
Scepsis after the death of Theophrastus, and there 
hidden in a cellar, rediscovered by Apellicon in Sulla's 
time, brought by Sulla to Eome, and republished 
by Tyrannio and Andronicus, may be correct in the 
facts. But if it is presupposed in consequence that 
the Peripatetics after the time of Theophrastus were 
acquainted with but few and those for the most part 
exoteric works of their founder, the assumption is not 
only improbable in itself, but contradicted by the fact 
that the use of all the works of Aristotle with unimpor- 
tant exceptions can be proved for the period between 
Theophrastus and Andronicus, notwithstanding the 
fragmentary character of the literary tradition of this 
period. 

§ 54. The Philosophy of Aristotle, 

Introductory. 

Aristotle considered himself a member of the school 
of Plato, and sharply as he contested the doctrine of 
its founder in many points, more especially in the 
central point of the doctrine of ideas, yet his whole 
philosophy is far more deeply and completely defined 
by its connection with Plato than by its opposition to 
him. It is true that he limits philosophy more ex- 
clusively than Plato to the region of science, and dis- 



180 ARISTOTLE, [§64 

tinguishes it more distinctly from moral activity, while 
on the other hand he assigns a greater importance for 
philosophy to empiric knowledge. Yet he, like Plato, 
places the peculiar mission of philosophy in the know- 
ledge of unchangeable Being and the ultimate bases of 
things, the general and necessary. This essence of 
things, the true and original real, he finds with Plato in 
the forms {zihr]\ which make up the content of our con- 
cepts. Hence his philosophy, like that of Socrates and 
Plato, is a science of concepts ; the individual is to be 
referred to general concepts, and explained by deriva- 
tion from concepts. Aristotle has brought this process 
to the highest state of perfection, both in the direc^on 
of dialectical induction and in that of logical demv lu- 
stration. Excluding all the poetical and mythical 
adornment, which, following the pattern of Plato, he 
did not despise in the writings of his youth, he carried 
it out with scientific severity. By the incisiveness and 
brevity of his mode of expression, and his extraordinary 
skill in creating a philosophical terminology, he knew 
how to gain for his exposition those advantages by 
which it is as far in advance of the exposition of Plato, 
as it is behind Plato in artistic finish, at any rate, in 
the works which have come down to us. But as the 
philosopher did not think of the forms as essences 
existing independently and separate from things, but 
only as the inner essence of individual things, he com- 
bines with the philosophy of concepts such a decided 
demand for the most comprehensive empiric knowledge, 
as can only be found at most in Democritus among 
his predecessors. He is not only a scholar, but an 



§54] ARISTOTLE'S PHILOSOPHY, 181 

observer of the first rank, equally eminent for his mul- 
tifarious knowledge, extending more especially to the 
earlier philosophers, for his comprehensive knowledge 
of nature, and his penetrating researches, though it is 
obvious that we must not expect from him what could 
only be obtained by the scientific aids and methods of 
our own century. 

The indications which Aristotle gives for the division 
of the philosophic system can only be with diifficulty 
applied to the contents of his own writings. He dis- 
tinguishes three sciences — theoretic, practical, and 
productive. Under the first are included Physics, 
Mathematics, and the ' First Philosophy ' (* Metaphysics,' 
of. p. 174), which is also called Theology ; practical 
philosophy is divided into Ethics and Politics, but the 
whole is also called Politics. For our purpose it is 
best to make the division into Logic, Metaphysics, 
Physics, and Ethics, the chief basis of our exposition of 
the Aristotelian system, and to add something by way 
of supplement to these main divisions. 

§ 55. The Aristotelian Logic. 

Aristotle has created Logic as a special science on 
the foundation laid by Socrates and Plato. He calls 
it Analytic, i.e. the introduction to the art of investiga- 
tion, and treats it as scientific methodology. Accord- 
ing to his view, scientific knowledge in the narrower 
sense {sTncrTTjfjLT]) consists in the derivation of the special 
from the general, the conditioned from its causes. But 
the development of knowledge in time takes the reverse 
path. Though the soul in its thinking nature possesses 



182 ARISTOTLE. [§55 

the possibility of all knowledge, and to that extent is 
dynamically possessed of all knowledge, it attains to 
actual knowledge by degrees only. What is the better 
known and more certain in itself is not so for us (^ Anal. 
Post.' i. 2, 71 b. 33; 'Phys.' i. 1, 184 a. 16); we must 
abstract the general concepts from the individual ob- 
servations, and rise by steps from perception by means 
of memory to experience, and from experience to know- 
ledge (' Anal. Post.' ii. 19 ; « Metaph.' i. 1, &c.), and it is 
owing to this importance of experience for knowledge 
lihat Aristotle expressly undertakes the defence of the 
truth of sensuous perception. He is of opinion that 
the senses as such never deceive us ; all error springs 
out of the false reference and combination of their 
evidence. Hence the Aristotelian Logic (in the ' Second 
Analytics ') deals with induction as well as proof ; but 
both are preceded (in the ' First Analytics ') by the doc- 
trine of the syllogism, which is the form common to 
both. It is only m connection with the syllogism that 
Aristotle deals with concepts and judgments. 

A syllogism is ' a speech, in which from certain pre- 
suppositions there arises something new ' (' Anal. Prior.' 
i. 1, 24 b. 18). These presuppositions are expressed 
in the premisses, and therefore in propositions (both are 
called TTpoTaacs by Aristotle). A proposition consists 
in an affirmation or negative assertion, and is therefore 
composed of two concepts (opot), a subject and a pre- 
dicate. Nevertheless Aristotle only treats concepts 
more at length in connection with the doctrine of the 
definition of the concept, as part of his metaphysical in- 
quiries. In the proposition or judgment (aTrocpavo-is), 



§55] THE ARISTOTELIAN LOGIC, 183 

he thinks only of the categorical judgments, which he 
divides according to their quality (now so called) into 
affirmative or negative, according to their quantity into 
general, particular, and indefinite (tt. spfjLrjvsias, into 
general, particular, and singular), and" according to 
their modality into assertions about Being, necessary 
Being, and possible Being. Further, he distinguishes 
the two kinds of opposition, contradictory {dvTlcjyaais) 
and contrary (^svavr lottos). He shows what judgments 
can be converted simply, and what require change in 
their quantity. Finally he remarks that from the 
combination of concepts in a judgment arises the con- 
trast of true and false. But the doctrine of the 
syllogism forms the chief contents of this part of 
his Logic, Aristotle was the first to discover in the 
syllogism the radical form in which all advance of 
thought moves, and he also gave the name to it. The 
syllogistic of his * First Analytics ' gives an exhaustive 
account of the categorical syllogisms in their three 
figures, of which the second and third receive their 
validity by being referred to the first. Into hypo- 
thetical and disjunctive syllogisms he does not enter. 

Proofs are compounded out of syllogisms. The 
object of all demonstration {aTrohsL^Ls) is the deriva- 
tion of the conditioned from its sources, in which (see 
supra) knowledge as such consists. The presup- 
positions of a proof must therefore consist of necessary 
and universal propositions; and a complete demonstra- 
tion (a complete science) is only realised when that 
which has to be proved is derived through all the in- 
termediary members from its highest preauppositions. 



184 ARISTOTLE, [§55 

Such a derivation would not be possible if the suppo- 
sitions, from which it starts, were in turn derivative, 
and so ad infinitum^ or if there were an endless series 
of intermediate members between the presuppositions 
and that which has to be derived from them. 

All mediate knowledge, therefore, presupposes an 
immediate, which in more precise terms is twofold. 
Both the most general principles from which the de- 
monstration proceeds, and the actual fact to which the 
principles are applied, must be known to us without 
proof; and if the facts are known to us by perception 
in a direct manner, Aristotle recognises in reason (vovs) 
the power of direcc, intuitive, and therefore unerring 
knowledge of the most general principles. Whether 
these principles are merely formal, or whether concepts 
with a definite content (as possibly the concept of the 
Deity) can be known in this manner, Aristotle did not 
inquire. He regards the rule of contradiction, for 
which he establishes different formulae in its logical 
and its metaphysical form though they agree in fact, 
as the highest and most certain principle of human 
thought. That even these convictions may not be 
without a scientific foundation, he introduces into them 
induction {sTrayayyi]) in the place of proof. Induc- 
tion emphasises a general definition, inasmuch as it 
shows that it actually holds good of all the individual 
cases brought under it. But as a complete observa^ 
tion of all individual cases is never possible, Aristotle 
looks round for a simplification of the inductive process. 
Following the pattern of Socrates, he establishes induc- 
tion on those assumptions which, owing to the number 



§ 55] THE ARISTOTELIAN LOGIC, 185 

or the authority of their supporters, may be supposed 
to have arisen out of actual experience {svho^a). By 
the dialectic comparison and examination of these as- 
sumptions, he endeavours to obtain correct definitions. 
He has applied this process with singular ability and 
wisdom in the airoplaL with which it is his habit to 
open every inquiry ; and though it is true that in his 
observation we miss the accuracy and completeness, 
and in his use of the statements of others, the criticism, 
which we are now accustomed to require, yet even in 
this respect he has done everything which can be 
reasonably expected from one in his position and 
with the aids to scientific research which his time 
afforded. 

The fixing of concepts or definition {opiafjios) rests 
in part on direct knowledge, which must be emphasised 
by induction. If all our concepts denote something 
general, which of necessity and always is attached to 
the things of a particular class, the concept in the 
narrower sense, in which it is the object of definition, 
denotes the essence of things,* their form, irrespective 
of their matter, the elements which make them what 
they are. If such a concept expresses that which is 
common to many things different in kind, it is a 
generic concept (rysvos). When the specific difference 
{Btacpopa siBoTTOLo^) is added to the genus, the result is 
the species {slBos), When this has been more closely 
defined by further distinctive marks, and this process 
has been continued as long as possible, we obtain the 

* ovffia, eidos, rh ri iart, to added (as rh avOpt&Trcp fhai), rh ri 
birep Sv, T^ dvai with a dative ^v dvat. 



J86 ARl&TOTLR [§53 

lowest specific concepts, whicli cannot now be divided 
into species but only into individuals, and these make 
up the concepts of every object ('Anal. Post.' ii. 13). 
Hence the definition of the concept must contain the 
marks which bring about the derivation of its object 
from its generic concept, not only with completeness, 
but in a correct order, corresponding to the graduated 
process from the general to the special. The essential 
aid for the definition of concepts is an exhaustive defi- 
nition, proceeding logically. Two things which are 
furthest removed from one another in the same genus 
are opposed as contraries {svavrlov), but two concepts 
are in contradictory opposition when one is the simple 
negative of the other (A, non-A). But Aristotle also 
applies these species of the contradictory to the con- 
ceptions of relation, and to those of having and 
derivation. 

All our concepts fall (* Categ.' 4 ; ' Top.' i. 9) under 
one or more of the ' main classes of assertions ' (^ysvr) or 
a')(rjixaTa tcov KarTjyopccbv), or* Categories ' {KarrjyopLai), 
which denote the various points of view from which 
things may be contemplated, while there is no concept 
which comprehends them as a class. Of these categories 
Aristotle enumerates ten : substance, quantity, quality, 
relation, where, when, place, possession, activity, pas- 
sivity (oucr/a or t/ sarL, iroaov, ttolov, irpos ti, ttov, 
TTOTf, KslaOat, ^'%^t^) TTOLSLV, 7rda')^scp). He is convinced 
of the completeness of this scheme, but no definite 
principle is to be found for its origin ; the categories 
of possession and place are named in the ' Categories ' 
and the * Topics,' but passed over in all later enumera- 



§S5J THE ARISTOTELIAN LOGIC. 187 

tions).* Of the remainder all have not the same value ; 
the most important are the four first, and among these 
the category of substance, to which all the rebt are related 
as what is derivative to what is primary. It is these 
categories which form the essential object of the first 
philosophy or metaphysics, 

§ 56. Aristotle^ 8 Metaphysics, 

This science is concerned with the inquiry into the 
ultimate basis, with Being as such, with the eternal 
incorporeal and immovable, which is the cause of all 
movement and form in the world. It is therefore the 
most comprehensive and valuable of all sciences. 
Speaking more precisely, it is concerned with the 
three questions of the relation of the individual and 
the Universal, form and matter, the moving and the 
moved. 

1. The Individual and the Universal. — Plato will 
allow only the ideas, the universal, to be the original 
and bare reality. This forms the content of our 
concepts, and if he consequently described the ideas as 
self-existent essences, which are independent of indi- 
vidual things, Aristotle is in harmony with him. He 
subjects the doctrine of ideas (' Metaph.' i. 9, xiii. 4-10, 
&c.), and the assumptions connected with it, to the 
most penetrating and annihilating criticism (in spite 
of some injustice and inaccuracy). In this criticism 
the most decisive objections are -that the Universal is 
nothing substantial ; that the essence cannot be ex- 

» Anal. Post. i. 22, 83 a. 21 b. 16. Pliys. v. 1 end. Met. v. 1, 
1017 a. 24. 



188 ARISTOTLE, [§66 

ternal to tlie things of which it is the essence ; that 
ideas do not possess the moving force without which 
they cannot be the cause of phenomena. On his part 
he could only regard the individual as the real in the 
full sense, as a substance {ovctlo,). For if this name 
is only given to that which can neither be predicated 
of another, nor adheres as an accident to another,' only 
the individual nature is substance. All general con- 
cepts, on the other hand, express merely certain 
peculiarities of substances, and even generic concepts 
only express the common essence of certain substances. 
They can therefore be called substances in an improper 
and derivative manner {psvTspat ovalai), but they 
must not be regarded as anything existing outside 
things. They are not a sv irapa iroWa, but a sv Kara 
TToWcov, But if the form, which is always something 
universal in comparison with that which is compounded 
of form and material, is allowed to have the higher 
degree of reality (cf. infra), and only the general, or 
that which is in itself earlier and better known, can be 
the object of knowledge (pp. 180, 182), we have here 
a contradiction of which the results run through the 
entire system of Aristotle. 

2. However vigorously Aristotle contests the inde- 
pendent and separate existence of the Platonic ideas, 
he is not inclined to surrender the leading thoughts 
of the doctrine. His own definitions of form and 
matter were rather an attempt to carry the subject out 
in a theory more tenable than that of Plato. The object 

• Categ. 5. oiiaia Se i<niv . . . Aeyerot ixi]T iv inroKsifievcp rivi 
% fi-fire Kad' viroKeifj.ivov rivhs iariy. Cf. C. 2. 1 a. 20 If. 



§56] ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS, 189 

of knowledge, he says with Plato, can only be the 
necessary and unchangeable ; all that is perceived by 
the senses is accidental and changeable ; it can be and 
not be (is a^i hhs')(oiJb£vov kov slvai kol [jur] slvai) ; only 
that which is beyond sense and thought in our con- 
cepts is as unchangeable as the concepts themselves. 
Still more important for Aristotle is the assumption 
that every change presupposes something unchange- 
able, all Becoming something not in process of becom- 
ing ; and this something, if we examine it closer, is of 
a twofold nature — a substratum, which becomes some- 
thing and upon which the change takes place, and the 
qualities in the communication of which to the sub- 
stratum the change consists. The substratum is 
called by Aristotle the vXt], an expression coined for 
the purpose ; the qualities are called the form, the 
sl^os — a word used for the Platonic ideas (also jubopcj)}]. 
Other terms are used, see p. 185, note). As the object 
of becoming is attained when the material has assumed 
its form, the form of a thing is the reality of it, and 
form generally is reality {ivspysca, ivrsXs'x^sLa) or the 
real (ivspysia 6v). As, on the other hand, the material 
as such is not yet that which it becomes in the result, 
but must have the capacity to become so, matter is 
also the possibility or the possible (hvvafjuis, Bwdfisi 
6v), If we think of material without form, we get the 
' first matter ' (Trpcorr) vXrj), which, being without 
definition, is also called the (qualitatively) unlimited, 
the common substratum of all limited matter. Yet as 
it is what is merely possible, it never existed and 
never could exist. On the other hand, the forms are 



190 ARISTOTLE. [§ 56 

not merely modifications or creations of our most 
universal form ; each is, on the contrary, eternal and 
unchangeable as that j)articular form, just as the ideas 
of Plato, only it is not, like the idea, outside things, 
and never was, in the eternity of the world. The form 
is not merely the concept and the essence of each 
thing, but also its aim and the power which realises 
that aim. Though these different relations are as a 
rule apportioned to different subjects, and Aristotle in 
consequence frequently enumerates four different kinds 
of cause — the material, the formal, the motive, and 
the final cause — yet the three last mentioned coin- 
cide in their essence, and often in fact in particular 
cases (as in the relation of the soul to the body and of 
the Deity to the world). The only original difference 
is that between the form and the matter. This runs 
through everything. Wherever one thing is related 
to another as the more complete, the definite, and 
operating element, the first is denoted as the form or 
actual, the second as the matter or potential. But as a 
fact matter acquires in Aristotle a meaning which 
goes far beyond the concept of simple possibility. 
From it arise natural necessity i^avd'yKT]) and accident 
(avro/jLarov and tv)(7)\ which limit and encroach upon 
the power which nature and man have of realising 
their aims. On the quality of matter rests all imper- 
fection of nature, and also differences so vital as the 
difference between the heavenly and the earthly, the 
male and the female. It is due to the resistance of 
matter to form that nature can only rise by degrees 
from lower forms to higher ; and it is only from matter 



§56] ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS, 191 

that Aristotle can explain that the lowest special con- 
cepts diverge into a number of individuals. It is 
obvious that matter thus becomes a second principle 
beside form, endowed with a power of its own, and 
however great the advantages which the philosopher 
derived from his doctrine of form and matter for the 
explanation of phenomena, we nevertheless find great 
difficulty in the obscurity which arises from the fact 
that ova-ta is sometimes placed on a par with the 
individual and sometimes with the form (p. 188). 

3. From the relation of form and matter comes the 
motion, or, what is the same thing, the change to which 
everything in the world which contains matter is subject. 
Motion is, in fact, nothing else than the realisation of 
the possible as such {fi rod Bwd/isi ovtos svTsXs')(^SLa, fj 
roLovTov, 'Phys.' iii. 1, &c.). The impulse to this 
realisation can only be given by something which is 
already that which the thing moved will become owing 
to the movement. Hence every movement presup- 
poses two things — an element moving and an element 
moved, and even if Being moves itself, both these two 
elements must be separate in it, as soul and body in 
men. The moving element can only be the actual or 
the form ; the moved element is the potential or ma- 
terial. The first operates upon the second by rousing 
it to move towards reality or definiteness of form. 
From its nature (so far as in every structure there 
exists a desire for its realisation in use or activity) 
matter has a desire {£(j)Lsa6ai, opiyeaOai, bpfir)) after 
the form of the good and divine {' Phys.' i. 9, 192 a. 16, 
ii. 1, 192 b. 18 ; 'Metaph.' xii. 7, 1072 b. 3). When 



192 ARISTOTLE. [§56 

form and matter touch, motion must of necessity always 
arise. And as not only form and matter, but also the 
relation of the two on which motion rests, must be 
eternal (for its origin and decay can only be brought 
about by motion), as also time and the world, both of 
which cannot be thought without motion, are without 
beginning and end (cf. § 57, 58), motion can never 
have begun and can never cease. The ultimate basis 
of this eternal movement can only lie in something 
unmoved. For if all movement arises through the 
operation of that which moves upon that which is 
moved, the moving element, as it also is moved, pre- 
supposes a separate moving element, and this goes on 
till we reach a moving cause, which is itself not moved. 
If, therefore, there were no unmoved moving cause, 
there could not be such a thing as a first moving cause, 
and consequently no movement whatever, and still less 
movement without a beginning. But if the first mov- 
ing cause is unmoved, it must be immaterial form 
without matter, or pure actuality. For wherever there 
is matter there is the possibility of change, the process 
from the potential to the actual, and movement ; it is 
only the incorporeal which is unchangeable and un- 
moved. As the form is complete Being, and matter 
incomplete, the first moving cause must also be the 
absolutely perfect, or that in which the series of Being 
comes to an end. Moreover, as the world is a uniform 
whole, well arranged, and referred to a single end, and 
the motion of the orb of the world is uniform and con- 
tinuous, the first moving cause can only be one ; it 
can indeed only be the final object. But the mer« 



§56] THE METAPHYSICS OF ARISTOTLE. 193 

incorporeal being is nothing but thought or spirit 
{yovs). Therefore the ultimate basis of all movement 
lies in the deity as the pure, perfect spirit, infinite 
in power. The activity of this spirit can only consist 
in thought; for every other activity (every irpaTTStv and 
iroielv) has its object beyond itself, which is inconceiv- 
able in the activity of the perfect, self-sufficient being. 
This thought can never be in the condition of mere 
potentiality, it is a ceaseless activity of contemplation 
{Oswpio). It can only be its own object, for the value 
of thought is in proportion to the value of its contents ; 
but only the divine spirit himself is the most valuable 
and complete object. Hence the thought of Grod is 
the ' thought of thought,' and his happiness consists in 
this unchangeable contemplation of self. The spirit 
does not operate on the world by passing from himself 
and directing his thought and volition towards it, but 
by his mere existence. As the highest good the simply 
perfect being is also the final object of all things, that 
to which everything strives and moves ; on it depends 
the uniform order, the cohesion, and the life of the 
world. Aristotle has not assumed a divine will di- 
rected to the world, or a creative activity of the deity, 
or an interference of the deity in the course of the 
world.* 

* The most important pas- Metaph. xii. 6 f., 9 f. ; De Ctrlo^ 
sages for the theology of Ari- i. 9, 279 a. 17 fE.j Fragvi. 12-16. 
stotle are Phy». viii 5. 6. 10 j 



194 ARISTOTLE. [§ 57 



§ 57. Aristotle's Physics, 
Point of View and General Principles, 

If the ' First Philosophy ' is concerned with the im- 
movable and incorporeal, the object of physics is the 
movable and corporeal, and more precisely that which 
has the source of its movement in itself. ' Nature 
{(f>vcns) is the source of movement and rest in that in 
which these are originally found' (' Phys.' ii. 1. 192 b. 
20) ; but how we are to conceive this source more pre- 
cisely, and what is the relation in which it stands to 
the deity, remains doubtful. Much as the philosopher 
is in the habit of treating nature as a real power opera- 
ting in the world, his system gives him but little right 
to assume as a substance such a power. 

By movement Aristotle (see supra) understands in 
general every change, every realisation of what is 
possible, and in this sense he enumerates four kinds of 
movement: substantial, or origin and decay; quanti- 
tative, as addition and subtraction; qualitative or 
alteration {aWolcoo-is, the transition of one material 
into another) ; local {(jjopd, change of place). But 
only the last three are considered motion in the 
narrower sense [KLvrjaL^), while the conception of change 
includes all four (/jLSTajSoXi]), All other kinds of 
change are conditioned by local movement; and 
Aristotle ('Phys.' iii. iv.) examines more minutely 
thanany of his predecessors the conceptions which were 
related in the first instance to this kind of movement. 
He shows that the unlimited can only be potential, in 



§67] THE PHYSICS OF AUISTOTLE. 195 

the infinite multiplication of numbers, and the divisi- 
bility of magnitudes ; it can never be given in reality. 
He defines sjpace (tottos, more rarely %«/3a) which, 
however, he does not sharply distinguish from locality, 
as the limit of the surrounding body towards that 
which is surrounded, and time as the number of motion 
in regard to what is earlier and later {apiOiios KivrjasMs 
Kara to irporspov koI varspov). From this he deduces 
the fact that beyond the world there is neither time 
nor space — that empty space (as is stated more at 
length in opposition to the Atomists) is inconceivable, 
and that time, like every number, presupposes a 
numbering soul. He proves (to mention a few things 
out of many) that movement in space, and, among such 
movements, movement in a circle, is the only uniform 
and constant motion, which can be without beginning 
and end. Yet movement in space, and the mechanical 
view of nature which corresponds to it, is not sufficient 
in Aristotle's opinion to explain phenomena. He 
maintains against it the qualitative difference of matter, 
and not only contests Plato's mathematical construction 
of the elements, but also the theory of Atoms, for 
reasons against which this theory could not be defended 
in its Democritean form, and in the existing state of 
physical knowledge. He also assumes, while attacking 
the opposite theories, a qualitative change of matter, 
and more especially of the elements, into each other. 
By this change the qualities of one are changed under 
the influence of another. This relation of activity and 
passivity is only possible when two bodies are opposed 
to each other which are partly similar and partly 



196 ARISTOTLE. [§B7 

dissimilar, i.e. when they are opposed witliin the same 
genus. In the same spirit Aristotle defends the notion 
according to which the intermixture of matter con- 
sists not merely in combination, but in the formation 
of a new matter out of that which has been mixed, a 
notion opposed to the mechanical theories. Still more 
important for him is the principle that the operation of 
nature must be universally regarded not merely as phy- 
sical, but essentially as a striving towards an end. The 
end of all becoming is the development of potentiality 
to actuality, the creation of form in matter. Thus the 
result of the Aristotelian doctrine of form and matter, 
as of the Platonic doctrine of ideas, is a preponderance of 
the teleological explanation of nature over the physical. 
' Nature,' Aristotle explains, ' does nothing without an 
aim,' * she is always striving after the best ; ' ' she always 
makes the most beautiful that is possible.' Nothing in 
nature is superfluous, or in vain, or incomplete ; in all 
her works, even the smallest, there is something divine, 
and even failures are applied by her, as by a good house- 
wife, to some useful object. That this is the case is 
shown by the observation of nature, which allows us to 
perceive a most marvellous design in the arrangement 
of the world, and in all natural objects, however great 
or small. We are compelled to refer this design to an all- 
pervading movement towards an end by the considera- 
tion that whatever occurs regularly cannot be the result 
of accident. If we cannot ascribe reflection to nature 
this only proves that she, like perfect art, creates what 
is suitable to her aim with the unerring certainty which 
excludes choice. Hence the real source of natural 



§67] THE PHYSICS OF ARISTOTLE. 197 

objects lies in final causes ; material causes, on the other 
hand, are regarded by Aristotle, as by Plato (cf. p. 151), 
as conditions and indispensable aids (if viroOsasois 
ava'^KoXoVy (TvvaiTLoVy to ov ov/c dvsv to sv), but not as 
the positive causes of obj ects. But what resistance these 
intermediate causes make to the teleological activity of 
nature, how its effects are in consequence limited, so 
that in the earthly world (for in the heavenly material 
is of a different species) this activity is forced into a 
graduated progress from imperfection to perfection, has 
already been observed (p. 190). 

§ 58. The Universe and its Parts. 

From the eternity of form and matter, together 
with the absence of all beginning and end in motion 
(see supra, p. 192), follows the eternity of the universe. 
The assumption that the world, though it has come 
into being, will last for ever, overlooks the fact that 
origin and decay mutually condition each other, and 
that that alone can be imperishable the nature of which 
excludes both the one and the other. Even in the world 
of earth it is only individual things which come into 
being and decay; genera, on the other hand, are 
without beginning, and hence men have always been in 
existence, though, as Plato also assumed, the race has 
been from time to time partly destroyed and partly re- 
duced to savagery over wide districts by great natural 
catastrophes. Owing to this doctrine of the world which 
he was the first to establish, and which deeply pene- 
trates into his system, the cosmogonic part of physics is 



198 ARISTOTLE. [§68 

of little importance for Aristotle. He has not to explain 

the origin of the world but only its nature. 

The foundation of his explanation is the division into 
the two unequal parts, out of which the universe is 
composed; the world above and the world below the 
moon, the heavenly and the earthly world, the Beyond 
and the Here {ra sksl and ra ivravOa). The imperish- 
able nature of the stars and the unchangeable regularity 
of their motions prove, what Aristotle also attempts 
to demonstrate on general grounds, that they are dis- 
tinct in their material from perishable things which 
are subject to constant change. They consist of aether, 
the body without opposite, which is capable of change 
in space only and no other, and has no movement 
besides circular movement. But things consist of the 
four elements which stand to one another in a double 
opposition ; the opposition of weight and lightness, 
which arises from their peculiar direct motion to their 
natural localities, and the qualitative opposition, which 
results from the various possible combinations of their 
original qualities — warm and cold, and dry and moist 
(fire is warm and dry, air warm and moist, water cold 
and moist, earth cold and dry). Owing to this oppo- 
sition they are constantly passing into each other, 
those that are at a greater distance by the mediation 
of those that are between them. From this follows, not 
only the unity of the world, which is also secured by the 
unity of the primum mobile, but also its spherical form, 
which, however, Aristotle proves on many other physical 
and metaphysical grounds. In the centre of the world 
rests the earth, as a proportionately smaller part of it, 



§58] THE UNIVERSE AND IT>S PARTS. 199 

which in form is also a sphere ; round the earth, in 
concentric spherical layers, lie water, air, and fire (or 
more precisely the warm- substance, virsKKav/jba, for 
flame is v7rspj3o\r] irvpos)', then come the heavenly 
spheres, of which the material is thought to be purer 
in proportion to their distance from the earth. The 
outermost of these spheres is the heaven of the fixed 
stars (tt/owto^ ovpav6s\ the daily revolution of which 
is brought about by the deity, which, though occupying 
no space, surrounds it (cf. p. 195). The movement of 
every sphere consists in a perfectly even revolution upon 
its axis. This Aristotle assumes with Plato and all 
contemporary astronomy, but proves it in detail of the 
first sphere. Hence, following a view of the problem 
which proceeded from Plato, we must assume the 
number of spheres and ascribe to them those motions 
which it is necessary to presuppose in order to explain 
the actual movements of the seven planets from 
merely uniform circular motions. On this hypothesis 
Eudoxus had already fixed the number of the spheres, 
which cause the motion of the planets, including the 
seven spheres in which the planets are fastened, at 
twenty-six, and Callippus at thirty-three. Aristotle 
follows them, but as according to his theory the 
external spheres stand to the internal as form to 
matter, the moving to the moved, every sj)here must 
impart its movement to all the spheres which it in- 
cludes, just as the outermost does, which carries them 
all round in its daily revolution. Thus the independent 
movement of each planet must be disturbed by the 
motion of the whole number of circumambient spheres. 



200 ARISTOTLB. [§58 

unless special precautions are taken to prevent it. 
Hence Aristotle assumes that between the spheres of 
each planet and those of the planet immediately beneath 
there are as many ' backward- moving ' spheres (cr^atpat 
dvsXlrTovcrat) revolving in the opposite direction, as 
are required to neutralise the influence of the one upon 
the other. The number of these spheres he puts at 
twenty-two, and by adding them to the spheres of 
Callippus he obtains fifty-six as the entire number of 
heavenly spheres, including that of the fixed stars. 
To each of these, as to * the first heaven,' its motion 
must be imparted by an eternal and unlimited, and 
therefore incorporeal substance, by a spirit belonging 
to it ; and thus there must be as many sphere-spirits as 
spheres. For this reason Aristotle also extols the stars 
as animated, rational, divine beings, standing far above 
mankind. But he will not assign anything more than 
probabihty to his assertions about the number of the 
spheres and the sphere-spirits ('Metaph.'xii. 8;'Simpl. 
De Cselo;' Schol. in Arist. 498 ff.). 

In consequence of friction, especially in the places 
which lie beneath the sun, the motion of the heavenly 
spheres gives rise to light and warmth in the air. 
But owing to the inclination of the course of the sun 
this result occurs in a different degree for every place 
in the different seasons of the j^ear. Hence follows the 
circle of origin and decay, this copy of the eternal in 
the perishable, the flow and ebb of matter, and the 
transposition of elements into each other, out of which 
arise all the atmospheric and terrestrial phenomena with 
which Aristotle's meteorology is occupied. 



60] LIVING BEINGS. 201 



§ 69. Living Beings. 

Aristotle has devoted a great part of his scientific 
labours to the study of organic nature (see p. 173). 
P"or this purpose he could doubtless avail himself of 
many inquiries of physicists and physicians— as, for 
instance, of Democritus, but his own contributions, from 
all indications, went so far beyond theirs that we need 
have no scruple in calling him not only the most eminent 
representative, but also the chief founder of comparative 
and systematic zoology among the Greeks. And even 
if he did not write his work on Plants, yet from his 
activity as a teacher he deserves to be called the first 
founder of scientific botany. 

Life consists in the capacity of movement. But 
every movement presupposes two things : a form which 
moves, and a material which is moved. The material 
is the body, the form is the soul of the living being. 
Hence the soul is not without body, nor is it corporeal, 
and at the same time it is unmoved, and not a self- 
moving element, as Plato thought ; it stands in the same 
connection with the body, as form does everywhere with 
matter. As the form of the body, it is also its object 
(see p. 190); the body is only the instrument of the 
soul, and its nature is determined by this office. This is 
the conception of the organic (a conception which, like 
the word, was first made by Aristotle). If, there- 
fore, the soul is defined as the Entelechy of an 
organic body (ii^rsXe^sta 77 irpcorr] o-cofiaros (pvai/cov 
opyavcKov, ' De An.' ii. 1. 412 b. 4), this means that it 



202 ARISTOTLE. t|59 

is the power which moves the soul and fixes its 
structure. It is, therefore, quite natural that the 
teleological activity of nature comes most plainly to 
the surface in living things, because in them from the 
very beginning all is calculated with regard to the soul 
and the operations proceeding from the soul. But if 
that activity can only overcome the resistance of 
matter by degrees (see p. 192), the Hfe of the soul is 
in itself very unequal in quality. The life of plants 
consists in nourishment and reproduction ; in animals 
we have the additional factor of sensible perception, 
and, in the great majority, of local movement; in 
man we go further and attain to thought. Hence 
Aristotle, partly in harmony with Plato (p. 154), 
assumes three kinds of souls, which when combined 
into one individual soul become three parts of the 
soul. There is the nourishing, or plant soul; the 
sensible, or animal soul, and the rational, or human 
soul. The gradation of living beings corresponds to 
the progressive development of the life of the soul. It 
proceeds constantly, by the aid of gradual transitions, 
from the most imperfect to the highest, while the 
numerous analogies, which we find between the various 
parts, show that the whole series is governed by the 
same laws. 

Plants form the lowest stage. Limited to the 
functions of nourishment and reproduction, they are 
without any uniform centre {fisaorrfs) for their life, and 
are therefore incapable of feeling. In the treatises 
which have come down to us, Aristotle only allows 
them a passing notice. With animals, on the other 



§69] LIVING BEINGS. 203 

hand, he occupies himself in great detail,* and makes it 
his object throughout to unite the knowledge of their 
importance for the whole, and their position in the whole, 
with the most exact acquaintance with particular facts. 
The body of animals is composed of matter consisting 
of like parts (o/jbOLo/jLspi]), which in turn is a mixture of 
elementary matter. Flesh is the seat of feeling 
(the nerves were a later discovery), and is thus of 
special importance. The direct repository of the soul 
is the breath as the source of living warmth, a body 
connected with the aether, with which it passes in the 
seed from the father to the child. The chief seat of 
living warmth is the central organ, which in san- 
guineous animals is the heart. In the heart the blood 
is prepared from the nourishment conveyed to it by the 
veins. The blood serves partly for the nomishment of 
the body, and partly also (see below) gives rise to 
certain presentations. The genesis of animals assumes 
various forms which the philosopher has carefully in- 
vestigated. Besides sexual generation, he assumes an 
original generation, even among certain fishes and 
insects. Yet the first kind of genesis is in his eyes 
the more perfect. The male sex stands to the female 
as form to matter. The soul of the child comes ex- 
clusively from the first, the body from the second. The 
physiological reason of this difierent relation lies in 
the fact that the female sex, owing to its colder nature, 
cannot sufficiently prepare the blood needed for the 
generative material. The mode in which the organism 
is shaped consists in general in the development from 
' J. B. Meyer, Aristoteles' ThierTmnde^ 1855. 



204 ARISTOTLE. [§59 

the vermicular shape, through the Qgg, to an organic 
form. But in regard to their genesis, as in regard to 
their bodily structure, their habitats, their mode of life, 
and progression, there are the most remarkable differ- 
ences among animals. Aristotle is at pains to prove the 
gradual progress from the lov^er to the higher, which 
he assumes, in all these respects, but we cannot be 
astonished if he has failed to carry this point of view- 
through without some deviation, or establish upon it 
a natural classification of the animal kingdom. Among 
the nine classes of animals which he usually enumerates 
(viviparous quadrupeds, oviparous quadrupeds, birds, 
fishes, whales, molluscs, scaly animals, those with soft 
scales, and insects), the most important contrast is that 
between the bloodless and sanguineous animals, of 
which he himself remarks (' Hist. An.' iii. 7. 516 b. 22) 
that it coincides with the distinction between inverte- 
brate and vertebrate animals. 

§ 60. Man. 

Man is distinguished from all other living beings 
by spirit {yovs) which in him is combined with the 
animal soul. Even his bodily structure and the lower 
activities of his soul answer to the loftier calling which 
they have received by this combination. In his bodily 
structure this is proclaimed by his upright position 
and the symmetry of his figure ; he has the purest 
blood and the most of it; the largest brain, and the 
highest temperature; in the organs of speech and 
the hand he possesses the most valuable of all organs. 
Of the sensuous activities of the soul, perception 



§60] MAN. 206 

{alaO'qcns) is a change which is brought about in the 
soul by that which is perceived, through the medium 
of the body ; and more precisely it consists in the fact 
that the form of what is perceived is imparted to the 
person perceiving it. But the separate senses, as such 
only, inform us on those qualities of things, to which 
they stand in a special relation ; what they tell us of this 
(the aLo-Orjo-LS rcov IBlcov) is always true. The general 
qualities of things, on the other hand, about which we 
obtain information through all the senses, unity and 
number, size and figure, time, rest and motion, we do 
not know by any special sense, but only through a 
Common Sense (alo-OrjrrjpLov kolvov) in which all the 
impressions of the senses meet. It is by this common 
sense that we compare and distinguish the perceptions 
of the various senses, refer the pictures which they 
present to objects, and become conscious that our per- 
ception is our own. The organ of this common sense 
is the heart. If motion in the organ of sense continues 
beyond the duration of the perception, communicates 
itself to the central organ, and there calls up a new 
presentation of the sensuous picture, the result is an 
imagination {jiavTacrla^ which term is also given to 
imagination as a power). This, like all utterances of 
the common sense, can be not only true but false. If 
an imagination is recognised as a copy of an earlier 
perception (in regard to which deception is not un- 
common) we call it a remembrance {/jlvyj/jLT]), the 
conscious evoking of a remembrance is recollection 
{avd^vrjoris). Hence memory has its seat equally in 
the common sense. A change in the central organ 



206 ARISTOTLE. [§60 

caused by digestion produces sleep ; and the extinction 
of living warmth in it produces death. Internal move- 
ments in the organs of sense, or even such as are 
evoked by external impressions, if they reach the 
central organ, result in dreams; dreams, therefore, 
under certain circumstances, can be indications of an 
incident unnoticed in our waking life. When an 
object of perception is ranged under the Good or the 
Evil, it gives rise .to pleasure or aversion (feelings 
which, as is indicated ' De. An.' iii. 7, always contain a 
judgment of value) and from these comes a desire to 
attain or avoid. These conditions also proceed from 
the central point of feeling (the alaOrjTLfcr] ^eororrjs, 
loc. ciL 431 a. 11). No further distinction is made 
between emotion and desire, and if Aristotle, like 
Plato, opposes sTriOv/jbla and dvfzos as the purely 
sensual and the nobler form of irrational desire, 
he has not more closely defined the conception of 
Ovfjios, Under the term he understands anger, courage, 
and feeling. 

But all these functions belong as such to the animal 
soul, to which in man there is added for the first time 
the spirit or thinking power {vovs). While the animal 
soul is born and perishes with the body of which it is 
the form, the spirit is without beginning or end. Before 
procreation it enters into the soul-germ from without 
{Ovpadsv); it has no bodily organ and is not subject to 
sufifering or change {airaOrjs), nor is it affected by the 
death of the body. But as the spirit of a human in- 
dividual, in connection with a soul, it is influenced by 
the change of circumstances. In the individual th« 



§60] MAIf. 207 

powfe* of thought precedes actual thought ; his spirit 
is like a tabula rasa, on which a definite subject is 
first written by thought itself (this does not mean by 
sensuous perception, but by the intuition of porjrd), and 
thought is always accompanied by sensuous images 
(cpavTciafjiaTt^), Hence Aristotle distinguishes two 
kinds of vov9 ; ihat which does everything, and that 
which becomes everything ; the active and the passive.^ 
The latter is conddered as being born and decaying 
with the body, whiie the active vovs is eternal in its 
nature (the one is f>6apT69, the other dtScos), But 
inasmuch as our thought, as individuals, is only pos- 
sible by the co-operation of both, we have no remem- 
brance of the earlier ei^istence of our spirit ; nor can 
any of those activities which, according to Aristotle, 
are found only in beings bompounded of vovs and soul,^ 
be ascribed to the bodiless spirit either before or after 
its present life.^ More exaot definitions on the nature 
of passive reason, and its rektion to the active, will be 
sought in vain in Aristotle ; we do indeed see that he 
attempted to find a bond in them which is to estabKsh 
the connection between the p^vs and the animal soul ; 
but he does not show us ho-*v the various qualities 
which he ascribes to it can be united without contra- 
diction ; nor has he even raised the question, 

* The latter he calls vovs of the vovs but of the koivSv. 

iraOriTiKSs, the former he terms ^ For the above, cf. De. An. 

Th iroiovv. The phrase vovs iii. 4. 6. c. 7. 431 a. 14. b. 2, c. 8. 

iroi7jT(K<Js is first found in later 432 a. 8, i. 4. 408 b. 18 ff., ii. 2. 

writers. 413 b. 24; Ge/i. An. 11 3. Cf. 

2 The SiavoeTa-dai, (pi\e7v, fii- Phil. d. Gr. 11. h. 566 ff., 602 fE. 

o-eTy, ixv-np-ov^viLv, which, accord- Sitziingsber. d. Bei^l. Akad. 1882, 

ing to Be An. i. 4, are not •v6.Qf\ Nr. 4i). 



208 AmSTOTLB. [§ 60 

what is the seat of the human personality ; how the 
bodily vovs can lead a personal life without memory 
&c. ; how, on the other hand, self-consciousness and 
unity of personal life, of which it is the expression, 
arise by the combination of the vovs with the animal 
soul, of the eternal with the perishable, and how the 
nature compounded of both can be their subject. 

On the combination of reason with the lower powers 
of the soul rest those spiritual activities by which man 
is raised above the animals. The activity of the vovs, 
purely as such, is that immediate grasping of the 
highest truths, which has been already mentioned. 
From this, Aristotle, following Plato, distinguishes 
mediate knowledge as Si,dvota or sTno-TrjfjLij, and from 
this again opinion, which is related to what is not 
necessary. But Aristotle gives no further psycho- 
logical explanation of one or the other. If desire is 
accompanied by reason it becomes volition {^ovXtjctls). 
Aristotle unconditionally presupposes freedom of will, 
and proves it by the fact that virtue is voluntary, and 
we are universally held accountable for our acts. 
Hence, he also maintains that our volition decides on 
the final aims of our action (the most universal moral 
judgments), and that the correctness of our aims 
depends on virtue ('Eth.' vi. 13. 1144 a. 6 &c.). On 
the other hand, reflection must fix on the best means 
for these ends. So far as reason renders this service 
it is called the reflective or practical reason (vovs or 
Xoyos TrpaKTLKos, hidvoua irpaiCTLKr)^ to XoyiarLKOV, in 
distinction to iTriarrjfiovcKov), and prudence (insight, 
<l>p6vr}(ns) consists in the improvement of this reason. 



§ 60] MAN. 209 

More precise inquiries about the internal processes by 
which acts of will are realised, the possibility and the 
limits of the freedom of the will, are not found in 
Aristotle. 

§ 61. The Ethics of Aristotle. 

The aim of all human activity is, in general, 
Happiness. On this fact no Greek moralist had any 
doubt. Happiness alone is desired for its own sake, 
and not for the sake of something else. But Aristotle 
does not derive the measure, by which the conditions of 
happiness are determined, from the subjective feeling, 
but from the objective character of the activities of life. 
' Eudaimonia ' consists in the beauty and perfection of 
existence as such ; the enjoyment which arises in each 
individual from this perfection is only a consequence 
of it, not the ground upon which its value rests, and on 
which its extent depends. For every living creature 
the good consists in the perfection of its activity ; and 
therefore for men, according to Aristotle, it consists in 
the perfection of the specially human activity. This 
is the activity of reason, and virtue is the activity 
of reason in harmony with its mission. Hence the 
happiness of men, as such, consists in virtue. Or if 
two kinds of activity and two series of virtues are tc 
be distinguished — the theoretic and the practical- 
scientific or pnre activity of thought is the more 
valuable,^ practical activity or ethical virtue is the 
second essential constituent of happiness. But there 

' MetapTi. xii. 7. 1072 b. 24 : fi dewpta rb ^Sto-Tov koI HpiaroK 
Mh.x. 7.C. 8. 1178 b. 1 fiE. 



210 ARISTOTLE. :§ 61 

are farther considerations. INIaturity and perfection 
of life are a part of happiness : a child cannot be 
happy because he is as yet incapable of any complete 
activity (a/jsr?;). Poverty, sickness, and misfortune 
disturb happiness, and withdraw from virtuous activity 
the aids which wealth, power, and influence secure to it ; 
delight in children, intercourse with friends, health, 
beauty, noble birth are in themselves valuable. But 
only inward excellence is the positive constituent 
element of happiness. To this, external and corporeal 
goods are related merely as negative conditions (like 
material causes to final causes in nature); even the 
extremity of misfortune cannot make a good man 
miserable {aOXios), though it may stand in the way of 
his eudaimonia. Just as little does pleasure form an 
independent part of the highest good in the sense that 
it can be made an object of action. For though it 
is inseparable from every perfect activity, as the natural 
result of it, and does not deserve the reproaches which 
Plato and Speusippus have heaped upon it, yet its 
value depends entirely on that of the activity from which 
it has arisen. He only is virtuous who is satisfied by 
the performance of what is good and beautiful without 
any addition, and who joyfully sacrifices everything 
else to this activity (' Eth.' i. 5-1 1 ; x. 1-9, cf. vii. 
12-15). 

Of the qualities on which happiness rests, the 
advantages of thought and volition, the dianoetic and 
ethical virtues, the latter only are the object of ethics. 
The conception of ethical virtue is defined by three 
notes : it is a certain quality of will, which is placed 



§61] THE ETHICS OF ARISTOTLE. 211 

in the mean suitable to our nature, as fixed by reason 
and in the manner in which the prudent man would 
fix it {s^t9 irpoatpsTLKT] sv fisa-OTrjTL ovaa rfj 7r/305 
'^fids, QipLcr/jLEVT] Xoyo) /cal 0)9 av 6 (^povLjjLOS opiasisv 
' Eth.' ii. 6, init.y These definitions are carried out 
further, first in a general manner in * Eth.' i. 13-ii. 9 ; 
and then more specially, the first iniii. 1—8 ; the second 
in iii. 9-v. 15 ; the third in Book vi. 

(1) All virtues rest on certain natural capacities 
{apsTol (fivaifcal) ; but they only become virtues in the 
proper sense {/cvpia apsTrf) when they are accompanied 
by insight. On the other hand, virtue as ethical has 
its seat specially in the will. When Socrates referred 
it to knowledge, he overlooked the fact that in virtue 
the free decision of the will is concerned, not with the 
knowledge of moral rules, but with their application, with 
the government of the passions by the reason. Hence 
Aristotle devotes a special examination to the concep- 
tions which denote the various forms of the determina- 
tion of the will (' Eth.' iii.), the conception of what is 
voluntary, what is intended, &c. But the determination 
of will only becomes virtue when it is a lasting quality 
(Ifty), a firmly established sentiment, such as can only 
be found in mature men. 

(2) Eegarded as to its contents that quality of 
will is to be called moral which preserves the right 
mean between excess and defect. The nature of this 
mean depends upon the peculiar nature of the actor, 
for what is correct for one person may be too much 
or too little for another. Every virtue is there- 
fore a mean between two defects, of which some- 



212 ARISTOTLE. [§61 

times the one and sometimes the other is the more 
distant. Aristotle proves this more at length in the 
case of the individual virtues, bravery, self-control, &c., 
without, however, deriving them according to any fixed 
principle, such as Plato follows in his cardinal virtues. 
He treats justice, the cardinal virtue of civic life, most 
fully, devoting to it the whole fifth book of his ' Ethics,' 
a treatise which remained through the middle ages the 
basis of natural law. He regards as its object the correct 
apportionment of rewards and punishments (KspSos and 
^TjfjiLa), and according as he deals with public or private 
law he distinguishes justice in dividing (Stavs/ubTjrLKrj) 
from justice in correcting (BiopOcoTLKrj). The first has 
to apportion the honours and advantages which accrue 
to the individual from the community according to 
the worth of the recipient, the second must see that 
the balance of gain and loss is kept on either side in 
voluntary contracts {a-vvdXkd^fxara sKova-ia), and that 
of offence and punishment in involuntary legal pro- 
cesses. For the first, as Aristotle perversely maintains, 
the principle of geometrical proportion holds good, for 
the second the principle of arithmetical proportion. 
Justice in the strictest sense is that which holds good 
for equals, i.e. political justice. This is partly natural 
and partly legal ; and equity consists in a correction of 
the second by the first. 

(3) Who is to decide in any given case where the 
proper mean lies ? Aristotle tells us that this is the 
work of insight (cf. § 60, end), which differs from 
the other dianoetic virtues, because these are partly 
directed to what is necessary only, like vovs and 



§61] THE ETHICS OF ARISTOTLE, 213 

sinaTriiJbT) (cf. p. 208), and aocfyla which arises from 
the two ; and partly, like TS)(vr}, though concerned 
with what is changeable, they make production and 
not action their aim (cf. p. 181). 

From virtues and vices in the proper sense — i.e. 
from correct and perverse qualities of will — Aristotle 
distinguishes (vii. 1-11) those conditions which arise 
not so much from an habitual direction of will, as 
from the strength or weakness of the will in regard 
to the passions - moderation and endurance (sr^Kparsia 
and KapTspla) on the one hand ; and on the other 
excess and effeminacy. Finally, in his beautiful sec- 
tion on love and friendship (for <^tXia means both), so 
full of the most delicate observations and the most 
pertinent remarks (Books viii. ix.), he turns his 
attention to a moral relation in which it is already 
announced that man in his nature is a social being, 
and even that every man is related and friendly to 
every other (viii. 1. 1155 a. 16 ff . ; c. 13. 1161 b. 5), 
and that a common justice unites all men (' Khet.' i. 
13, init.). This trait is the foundation of the family 
and the State. 

§ 62, The Politics of Aristotle, 

The impulse towards a common life with his fellows 
lies in the very nature of man ( az^^/jojTroy ipvcrsi, ttoKlti- 
Kov ^Sov, 'Pol.' i. 2, 1253 a. 2), and this common life 
is needed not only to sustain, secure, and complete his 
physical existence, but above all because it is only by 
this means that a good education and an arrangement 
of life by law and justice is possible (' Eth.' x, 10). 



214 ARISTOTLE, [§62 

The aim of the State, therefore, is not limited to secu- 
ring legality, repulsing foreign enemies, and sustaining 
life ; its mission is something far higher and more 
comprehensive, being nothing less than the happiness 
of the citizens in a perfect common life {j] rov sv ^rjv 
KOivoavla or ^wris rskeias x^P^^ ^^^^ avrdpKovs, ' Pol.' iii. 
9. 1288 b. 33). For this reason the State is in its 
nature prior to the individual and the family, as in 
truth the parts of a whole are invariably conditioned 
by the whole as their aim to which they are sub- 
servient ('Pol.' i. 2). And as virtue is the most 
essential part of happiness, Aristotle, like Plato, recog- 
nises the chief object of the State to be the education 
of the people in virtue, and he distinctly disapproves 
of any arrangement by which a State is devoted to war 
and conquest instead of the peaceful care of moral and 
scientific education. 

But in point of time, at any rate, families and 
communities precede the State. Nature in the first 
instance brings man and wife together to found a 
household ; families extend into villages (^KWjjbat) ; the 
combination of several villages makes a State-com- 
munity (TToXty), which Aristotle does not distinguish 
from the State. The village-community is merely a 
stage in the transition to the State, in which it ends. 
On the other hand, Aristotle shows in the most strik- 
ing manner ('Pol.' ii. 1) that Plato's desire to sacrifice the 
family and private property to the unity of the State 
was not only impossible to realise in every respect, but 
proceeded from a false notion of this unity. A State ia 
not merely something uniform ; it is a whole consisting 



§ 62] THE POLITICS OF ARISTOTLE. 215 

of many various parts. Aristotle treats of marriage 
and the rest of the relations of family life with sound 
moral intelligence (' Pol.' i. 2, 13; 'Eth.' viii. 14, &c.). 
On the other hand he also pays his tribute to the 
national prejudice of the Grreeks, when he makes the 
untenable attempt to justify slavery by the presuppo- 
sition that there are men who are only capable of 
bodily labour and must therefore be ruled by others ; 
and this he considers to be in general the relation of 
barbarians to Hellenes (' Pol.'i. 4 fif.). The same holds 
good of his discussions on trade and industry (i. 8 ff.). 
He will allow only those kinds of acquisition to be natural 
which directly satisfy our needs. All trade concerned 
with money he regards with contempt and mistrust, 
and considers ' banausic ' work to be unworthy of a 
free man. 

In his theory of political constitutions Aristotle 
does not follow Plato in regarding a single form as the 
only correct one, and the rest as perversions. On the 
contrary he sees that the arrangements of the constitu- 
tion must be adapted to the character and requirements 
of the people for whom they are intended. Under 
different circumstances different things are correct, 
and what is itself imperfect may possibly be the best 
that can be obtained under the circumstances. For 
if the correctness of constitutions depends on fixing 
the aiw, of the State, and those are correct constitutions 
in which the common good, not the advantage of the 
ruling party, is the final object of the State, while all 
others are perversions, the forw, of the constitution 
depends on the apportionment of political power. This 



216 ARISTOTLE. L§ 62 

must be determined by tbe actual importance of tbe 
various classes in the nation for the State ; for a con- 
stitution is not likely to live, unless it has stronger 
supporters than opponents, and it is only just when it 
assigns equal rights to the citizens so far as they are 
equal, and unequal rights so far as they are unequal. 
But the most important differences among the citizens 
relate to their virtue, i.e. to their personal capability in 
everything upon which the welfare of the State depends, 
their property, their noble or ignoble origin, their 
freedom. Hence though Aristotle adopts the tradi- 
tional division of constitutions according to the number 
of the ruling class, and thus (like Plato, ' Polit.' 308 
ff.) enumerates six leading forms. Monarchy, Aristo- 
cracy, ' Polity' (called also Timocracy, ' Eth.' viii. 12), 
as correct forms ; Democracy, Oligarchy, and Tyranny 
as perverse forms {r^jjuapTrnjiivaiy 7rapsK/3dcrsis\ yet he 
does not omit to observe that this numerical division 
is only derivative. Monarchy naturally arises when 
one person is so far superior to all the rest that he is 
their born ruler ; aristocracy when the same is the case 
with a minority ; and ' polity ' when all the citizens 
are nearly equal in capability (by which in this case 
martial vigour is chiefly meant). Democracy comes 
into being when the mass of the poor and free have 
the guidance of the State in their hands; oligarchy 
when a minority of the rich and noble men are the 
rulers ; tyranny when a single person becomes by vio- 
lence the ruler of the State. On similar principles, 
the participation of one or other element is determined 
in the mixed forms of constitution (iii. 6-13, cf. c. 17. 



§ 62] THE POLITICS OF ARISTOTLE. 217 

1288 a. 8 ; iv. 4 ; iv. 11 f. ; vi. 2, init?). Yet we cannot 
deny that Aristotle has not succeeded in bringing these 
different points of view into complete harmony, nor 
has he carried them out with perfect consistency. 

At the basis of the description of his * best State ' (vii. 
f., more particularly iv. f., cf. p. 175) Aristotle, like Plato, 
places the arrangements of a Grreek republic. A Greek 
State it must be, for it is only among the Hellenes that 
he finds the qualities which make the combination of 
freedom and civic order possible. It must also be a re- 
public, because it is only in the heroic age that he finds 
the conditions necessary for a monarchy in his sense (iii. 
14 ff.), and in his own day he believes (v. 13. 1313 a. 3) 
that no single person can rise so far above the rest that 
a free people would voluntarily endure his sole dominion. 
His model State is an aristocracy which in its plan 
approaches the Platonic, however far removed from 
it in many of the details. All the citizens are to have 
the right to participate in the management of the 
State, and they are to be summoned to the exercise of 
this duty, when they are placed among those of riper 
age. But in the best State those only are to be citizens 
who are qualified to lead the State by their position in 
life and their education. Hence, on the one hand, 
Aristotle demands that all bodily labour, agriculture, 
and industry must be undertaken by slaves or metics, 
and, on the other, he prescribes an education which is 
to be entirely carried out by the State. This educa- 
tion closely resembles that of Plato. Yet, in our in- 
complete work, neither the section on education nor 
the description of the best State is brought to a close. 



218 " ARISTOTLE. [§62 

Besides his pattern State, Aristotle has also dis- 
cussed the incomplete forms with minute care. He 
distinguishes the various kinds of democracy, oligarchy, 
and tyranny, which arose partly out of the different 
natures of the ruling body and partly out of the fact 
that the characteristics of each form are carried out 
with more or less thoroughness. He examines the 
conditions on which depend the origin, maintenance, 
and decay of each form of State, and the arrangements 
and principles of government which belong to them. 
Finally he inquires what form of constitution is best 
for the majority of States and under ordinary circum- 
stances. He finds the answer in a combination of 
oligarchic and democratic arrangements by which the 
centre of gravity of civic life is thrown upon the pro- 
sperous middle class. Hence he secures for the 
progress of his State that regularity, and preservation 
of the correct mean, which are the best secmdty for the 
continuance of a constitution, and at the same time best 
correspond to the ethical principles of the philosopher. 
Aristotle calls this form of State a ' polity,' without 
explaining its relation to the constitution which bears 
the same name among the correct forms, but which 
is nowhere explained in detail. Next to it comes 
the form ' usually termed aristocracy ' (iv. 7). But 
this part of the Aristotelian ' Ethics ' is also left 
unfinished. 



§ 63] ARISTOTLE'S RHETORIC AND ART, 219 

§ 63. Rhetoric and Art, Attitude of Aristotle to 
Religion, 

Rhetoric occupies a kind of middle place between 
the * practical' and 'poetic' sciences. On the one 
hand, it is treated as an art {r^x^v) 5 on the other, as a 
subsidiary branch of dialectic (in the sense mentioned 
on p. 173), and of politics and ethics — an application of 
the first to the aims of the latter. The object of the 
orator is conviction by probability. Ehetoric is the 
artistic introduction to such conviction, in the various 
provinces to which senatorial, forensic, and epideictic 
speech are related. The most important point for 
rhetoric, therefore, is the doctrine of oratorical proof, to 
which the first and second books of the * Ehetoric ' are 
devoted (on book iii., see p. 176). Compared with this, 
Aristotle ascribes a very subordinate and conditional 
value to the power of exciting anger or sympathy, to 
grace of language, and skill in action, in which rhetoric 
down to his time had been accustomed to look for her 
strength. 

Aristotle does not appear to have treated any of the 
fine arts but poetry in independent works, and as his 
• Poetics ' have come down to us in a very mutilated 
form, we cannot gather from the writings of the 
philosopher any perfect aesthetic theory, or any com- 
plete doctrine of art. The conception of the beautiful, 
which is the leading idea of modem aesthetics, is as 
indefinite in Aristotle as in Plato (p. 162), and is not 
accurately distinguished from that of the good. Like 
Plato, he considers art as imitation {iilfjurja-Ls) ; but 



220 ARISTOTLE. [§63 

what art presents in imitation is not in Aristotle the 
sensuous phenomenon, but the inner nature of things, 
not what has happened, but what ought to happen accord- 
ing to the nature of things (the ava^Koiov r) sIkos) ; its 
forms are types {TrapdSscy/jLa) of universal laws ; hence 
poetry is nobler and nearer to philosophy than history 
(' Poet.' 9. 15). And this is the cause of its peculiar 
effect. If Aristotle (' Pol.' viii. 5, 7) distinguishes a 
quadruple use of music : (1) for amusement {Trat^ia), 
(2) for moral culture, (3) for recreation (BLaycoyi] 
connected with (^ypovrjaLs)^ and (4) for * purification * 
(^KaOapais) — if all art may be applied in one of these 
directions, yet mere amusement can never be its final 
object. But all the other three operations proceed 
from the fact that a work of art brings into sight and 
application the general laws in the particular object. 
The Katharsis, i.e. the liberation from disturbing emo- 
tions, is not to be regarded, with Bernays, as merely 
giving an opportunity to the emotions to relieve them- 
selves by occupation. As belonging to art it can only 
be brought about by an excitement of the feelings in 
which they are subjected to a fixed measure and law, 
and carried away from our own experiences and circum- 
stances to that which is common to all men. In this 
sense we have to understand the famous definition of 
tragedy.* 

In regard to religion we have nothing from Aristotle 

' Poet. 6. 1449 b. 24. ^crnv \6y. i.e. A^^y, and fiiXos) h 

olv TpaywSla /xlfx-qais irpd^ews airov- toIs /xoplois (dialogue and choi us), 

Salas Kal xeAeias /xeyeOos i^ovarjs, hpuvrcjiv Koi ov 5i' aTrayyiXias, Si' 

r}dv(Tfi4v(p K6yu) X^P^^ eKdarcp i\€ov Kal <p6^ov Trepaiuovaa t7;> 

Twi/ el5(i)y (the kinds of iiSvafi. riav roiovruv iradrj/j.drwv Kadapaiy. 



1 681 THE RELIGION OF ARISTOTLE. 221 

but scattered expressions. His own theology is an 
abstract monotheism, which excludes any interference 
on the part of the Deity in the course of the world 
(cf. p. 193). Though he sees something divine in 
nature and her adaptation of means to ends, and more 
immediately in the human spirit, the thought of re- 
ferring an effect to any but natural causes is so far from 
him that he does not accept the Socratic belief in Provi- 
dence, even in the form which Plato adopted it (p. 161). 
He is equally without any belief in a future retribu- 
tion. In the Deity he finds the final source of the 
coherence, order, and movement of the world, but every 
individual thing is to be explained in a purely natural 
way. He reverences the Deity with admiring affection, 
but demands no affection in return and no special 
providence. Hence the religion of his country is for 
him true in so far only as it contains a belief in a 
deity and in the divine nature of the heavens and the 
stars — a truth which he concedes to it as to every 
general and primeval conviction : ' all besides is myth,' 
which the philosopher derives partly from the incli- 
nation of men to anthropomorphic presentations, and 
partly from political considerations (' Metaph.' xii. 8. 
1074 a. 38 flf. ; « De Cselo,' i. 3. 270 b. 16 ; ii. 1. 284 
a. 2 ; « Meteor.' i. 3. 339 b. 19 ; ' Pol.' i. 2. 1252 b. 
24). In the State he desires to retain the existing 
religion ; a reform, such as Plato held to be necessary, 
is not required. 



THE PERIPATETIC SCHOOL. [§64 



§ 64. The Peripatetic School, 

After the death of its founder, the Peripatetic 
school was led by his faithful friend, the learned and 
eloquent Theophrastus of Lesbos (who died 288-286 
B.C., at the age of eighty-five, according to Diog. v. 
40. 58. 68). By his long and successful labours as a 
teacher, and his numerous writings, which cover the 
whole field of philosophy,^ Theophrastus contributed 
much to extend and strengthen the school. He also 
bequeathed to it an estate. On the whole he adheres 
as a philosopher to the soil of the Aristotelian system, 
but in particular points he endeavours to supplement 
and correct it by independent investigations. The 
Aristotelian logic received various extensions and 
alterations from him and Eudemus. The most impor- 
tant of these consist in the separate treatment of the 
doctrine of propositions, the limitations of their dis- 
tinctions of modality to the degree of subjective 
certainty, the enriching of the discussion of the 
syllogism by the doctrine of ' hypothetical ' conclusions, 
among which are also reckoned the disjunctive. 
Moreover, as is shown by the fragment of his treatise on 
metaphysics (* Fr.' 12), Theophrastus found difiiculties 
in essential definitions of the Aristotelian metaphysics, 
more especially in the adaptation of means to ends in 
nature, and in the relation of the primuvi mobile to 
the world. We do not know how he solved these diffi- 

' Those which have been edited by Schneider (1818 ff.) 
preserved, and the fragments of and Wimmer (1854:, 1862) ; cf. 
those what are lost have been p. 8. 



1 64] THE0PHRASTUS—EUDEMU8. 223 

culties, but lie refused to abandon the determinations 
themselves. He modified Aristotle's doctrine on move- 
ment, and raised considerable doubts against his defi- 
nition of space. But in the large majority of cases he 
follows the Aristotelian physics, and especially defends 
his doctrine of the eternity of the world against the 
Stoic Zeno (in Ps. Philo, ' JStern. Mundi,' c. 23 £f.). 
By his two works on plants, which have come down to 
us, and which in their leading thoughts closely adhere 
to Aristotle, he became the great authority on botany 
till past the end of the middle ages. He deviated 
from Aristotle in denoting human thought as a move- 
ment of the soul and with minute care removed the diffi- 
culties which stand in the way of the distinction 
between the active and the passive reason, without, 
however, removing this distinction. His ethics, which 
he embodied in several writings and carried out into 
detail with great knowledge of mankind, was charged 
by (Stoic) opponents with attributing too much value 
to external goods ; yet there is at most a slight differ- 
ence of degree between him and his teacher in this 
respect. He is further removed from him by his dis- 
inclination to marriage, in which he feared a disturb- 
ance of scientific labour; and in his disapproval of 
blood -offerings and flesh-diet, which he derived from 
the kinship of all living creatures. On the other 
hand, he follows his master (p. 213) when he main- 
tains that all men, and not merely those of one nation, 
are interconnected and related. 

Beside Theophrastus stands Eudemus of Ehodus as 
the most important of the personal pupils of the Stagirite. 



224 THE PERIPATETIC SCHOOL. [§64 

He also was active as a teacher of philosophy, no doubt 
in his own city. By his learned historical works (p. 8) 
ne did good service for the history of the sciences. In 
his views he adheres even more closely than Theo- 
phrastus to his master. Simplicius, 'Phys.'411. 15, 
calls him his most faithful (yvrjcncoTaTOs) disciple. In 
'Logic' he adopted the improvements of Theophrastus, 
but in his ' Physics ' he kept closely to the Aristotelian, 
often repeating the very words (cf. 'Eudemi Fragmenta,' 
ed, Spengel). The most important distinction be- 
tween his ethics (which have been adopted into the 
Aristotelian collection) and the ethics of Aristotle 
consists in the combination which he makes, after 
Plato, between ethics and theology. Not only does 
he derive the disposition to virtue from the Deity, but 
he conceives speculation, in which Aristotle had sought 
the highest good, more distinctly as a knowledge of 
Grod, and wishes to measure the value of all things and 
actions by their relation to this. The internal unity of 
all virtues he finds in the love of the good and 
beautiful for its own sake {KaXoKayaOla), 

A third Aristotelian is Aristoxenus of Tarentum, 
who attained renown by his ' Harmonics,' which we 
still possess, and other writings on music. Passing 
from the Pythagorean school into the Peripatetic, this 
philosopher combined a Pythagorean element with 
what was Aristotelian in his moral prescripts, and in 
his theory of music. Like some of the later Pytha- 
goreans, he explained the soul to be a harmony of the 
body, and therefore opposed its immortality. In this 
he was joined by Dicsearchus of Messene, his fellow- 



§64] DIC^ARCHUS—STRATO. 226 

pupil. Dicjearclius also deviated from Aristotle in 
giving the advantage to the practical over the theoretic 
life ; but on the other hand, his * Tripoliticus ' stands 
essentially on the ground of the Aristotelian ' Politics.' 
Regarding Phanias and Clearchus we have few state- 
ments, and these mostly refer to history or with the 
first to natural history ; Callisthenes (cf. p. 171), Leo of 
Byzantium, and Clytus, are only known to us as his- 
torians, Meno only as a physician. The case is the 
same with the pupils of Theophrastus : Demetrius of 
Phalerum, Duris, Chameleon, and Praxiphanes ; they 
are rather scholars and men of literature than 
philosophers. 

The more important is Strato of Lampsacus, the 
* physicist,' who succeeded Theophrastus, and for 
eighteen years was head of the Peripatetic school at 
Athens. This acute inquirer not only found much to 
correct in details in the theories of Aristotle,^ but he 
was opposed entirely to his spiritual and dualistic view 
of the world. He placed the deity on the same level 
with the unconscious activity of nature, and instead of 
the Aristotelian teleology demanded a purely physical 
explanation of phenomena. Of these he considered 
warmth and cold to be the most universal sources, 
and more especially warmth as the active prin- 
ciple. In man he set apart the spirit as something 

• For instance, he attributed lying between inclosing and in- 

weight to all bodies, and ex- closed bodies. He wished time to 

plained the rising of air and fire be called the measure of move- 

f rom the pressure of heavier ment and rest, not the number of 

bodies on lighter ; he assumed movement ; the sky, as we are 

empty spaces within the world, told, he regarded as consisting of 

and defined space as the vacuum fiery, not of ethereal matter. 



228 THE PERIPATETICS. [§64 

distinct in nature from the animal soul, and regarded 
all activities of the soul, thought as well as feeling, as 
motions of the same rational being which was seated in 
the head, in the region between the eye-brows, and from 
thence (as it seems with the Pneuma for its substra- 
tum) permeated the various parts of the body. Hence 
he controverted the immortality of the soul. 

Strato was followed by Lyco, who was leader of the 
school for forty-four years, down to 226-224 B.C. ; after 
him came Aristo of Ceos ; and after Aristo, Critolaus 
of Phaselis in Lycia, who in 156 B.C., when already 
advanced in years (he was more than eighty-two years 
old) visited Eome as an ambassador from Athens with 
Diogenes and Carneades. His successor was Diodorus 
of Tyre, and Diodorus (about or before 120 B.C.) was 
succeeded by Erymneus. Contemporary with Lyco 
were Hieronymus of Ehodes, and Prytanis; Phormio 
of Ephesus lived about the beginning of the second 
century; about the same time and later came the 
philosophers mentioned on p. 10, Hermippus, Satyrus, 
Sotion, and Antisthenes. But the philosophical services 
of these men appear to be almost entirely limited 
to handing down the Peripatetic doctrines. Hence 
they appear to have chiefly occupied themselves with 
practical philosophy, however celebrated the lectures 
of Lyco, Aristo, Hieronymus, and Critolaus, might be 
in point of form. Only in Hieronymus do we hear of 
any considerable deviation from the Aristotelian ethics. 
He declared freedom from pain, which he carefully 
distinguished from pleasure, to be the highest good. 
It is less important that Diodorus placed the suininum 



§64] LYCO—mEnONYMVS, ETC. 227 

bonum in a virtuous and painless life, for he, like 
Aristotle, considered virtue to be its most indispensable 
element. Even those parts of the spurious writings in 
our collection of Aristotle, which we can refer to the 
third century, or at any rate to the time before the 
end of the second, deviate from Aristotle only in 
details which are of little importance from the whole 
system. If they furnish a further proof that scientific 
activity did not die out in the Peripatetic school after 
Theophrastus and Strato, they also show that such 
activity, though it might supplement and correct in- 
dividual details, did not attempt to point out any ne\^ 
path for the solution of the greater problems. 



THIED PERIOD. 

The Post-Aristotelian Philosophy. 
§ 65. Introduction. 

The revolution caused in the life of tlie Grecian people 

by the rise of the Macedonian power, and the conquests 
of Alexander could not fail to exercise the deepest in- 
fluence on science. In the countries of the east and 
south an inexhaustible field of labour was opened, an 
abundance of new intuitions streamed in, new centres 
of national intercourse and civilisation arose. On the 
other hand, the Hellenic mother country, deprived of 
its political independence and importance, became an 
object of contention to strangers and the scene of their 
contests. The prosperity and population of the country 
sank in hopeless decay. Moral life was in danger of 
being swamped in the petty interests of private life, 
in the search for enjoyment and gain, and the struggle 
for daily subsistence. It had long ceased to have the 
support of the old belief in the gods, and it was now 
without the control of a vigorous political activity, 
directed to great aims. Under such circumstances 
it was natural that the pleasure and the power for free 
and purely scientific contemplation of the world should 
disappear ; that practical questions should force them- 
selves into the foreground, and that the chief value of 
philosophy should be sought more and more in the fact 



J 



§05] THE STOIC SCHOOL. 229 

that it provided men with a refuge against the miseries 
of life. Yet for this purpose a definite scientific theory 
was still found indispensable, to satisfy the speculative 
tendencies of the Grreek nation and the convictions 
which since the time of Socrates had taken such deep 
root. At the same time it is easy to understand that 
this mission of philosophy could only be satisfied when 
the individual made himself independent of all external 
things and withdrew into his inner life. Social 
union was now recommended by those who knew its 
value from a cosmopolitan rather than a political point 
of view, in harmony with the relations of the Alexandrine 
and Eoman period. This view was the more prevalent, 
as Plato and Aristotle, in their metaphysics as well as 
their ethics, had prepared the way for this retirement 
from the external world. The stages through which this 
mode of thought passed in the centuiies after Aristotle 
were stated on p. 31. 



FIEST SECTION. 
STOICISM, EPICUREANISM, SCEPTICISM. 

I. The Stoic Philosophy. 

§ 66. The Stoic School in the Third and Second 
Centuries B.C. 

The founder of the Stoic school was Zeno of Citium 
in Cyprus, a Greek city with a Phoenician element. His 
death appears to have taken place about 270 B.C. ; his 
birth, as he was seventy-two years old (Diog. vii. 28, 



230 THE STOIC SCHOOL. [§ 66 

against wliicli nothing is proved by the interpolated 
letter, ibid, 9) about 342 B.C.' In his twenty-second 
year, he came to Athens, where he attached himself to the 
Cynic Crates, and afterwards to Stilpo, though he also 
availed himself of the instruction of the Megarian Dio- 
dorus, of Xenocrates, and Polemo. About 300 B.C., or 
perhaps somewhat earlier, he came forward as a teacher 
and philosophical writer ; his pupils were at first called 
Zenonians, but afterwards Stoics, from the Stoa Poecile, 
their place of meeting. Universally honoured for his 
character, he voluntarily put an end to his life. He 
was followed by Cleanthes of Assus in the Troad, a 
man of singular force of will, moderation, and moral 
strength, but of less versatility of thought. According 
to Ind. Hercul. (see supra, p. 11), col. 29, he was born 
in 331 B.C., and died by voluntary starvation, apparently 
when eighty years of age (Diog. 176), i.e. in 251 B.C., 
but according to others, when ninety-nine years old. 
Besides Cleanthes the following are the most important 
among Zeno's personal pupils : Persseus, the countryman 
of his master, and sharer of his house ; Aristo of Chius, 
and HeriUus of Carthage (cf. § 67. 71); Sphaerus of 
Bosporus, the tutor of Cleomenes, the Spartan king, and 
Aratus, the poet of Soli in Cilicia. The successor of 
Cleanthes was Chrysippus of Soli (he died in 01. 143, 
208-4 B.C., at the age of seventy-three, and was therefore 
bon in 281-76 B.C.), an acute dialectician and labori- 
ous scholar. By his successful labours as a teacher 

' E. Eohde (Eh. Mus. xxxiii. in 263-4, the birth in .S36, which 
622f.), Gompertz (iA. xxxiv. 154) can hnrdly be harmonised with 
place the death, with Jerome, Diog. 28. 24. 



^G^l THE STOIC SCHOOL. 231 

and his very numerous works — which, it is true, were 
too discursive, and negligent in style and exposition — 
he not only rendered very great services for the outward 
spread of Stoicism, but brought its system of teaching 
to perfection. Contemporaries of Chrysippus are Erato- 
sthenes of Cyrene (276-2 B.C.— 196-2 B.o) the famous 
scholar, a pupil of Aristo, and the moralist Teles, whose 
Cynicism leads us to suppose that he also owed his 
connection with the Stoa to Aristo (Stob. 'Floril.' 
95, 21). Chrysippus was succeeded by two pupils, 
first Zeno of Tarsus, then Diogenes of Seleucia (Diogenes 
the Babylonian) who in 156 B.C. took part in the 
embassy of the philosophers to Kome (p. 226), but 
apparently did not long survive it. Of the numerous 
pupils of Diogenes, Antipater of Tarsus was his suc- 
cessor in the chair at Athens, while Archedemus, 
also of Tarsus, founded a school in Babylon. Two other 
pupils of Diogenes, Boethus and Pansetius, wiU meet us 
in § 80. 

§ 67. Character and Divisions of the Stoic System, 

Of the numerous writings of the Stoic philosophers 
for the first three centuries of the school only fragments 
remain. The later accounts usually treat the Stoic 
doctrine as a whole, without expressly saying what 
doctrines belong to Zeno, and what are due to his 
successors, especially Chrysippus.^ Hence it remains 
for us to set forth the system in the form which it 

• A detailed investigation on only partially accept, will be 

this subject, the results of which, found in R. Hirzel, i'ntersucMm- 

so far as they go beyond what gen zu Cicero's pMl. Schiiften^ ii. 

is hitherto acknowledged, I caJi a. 1882. 



232 7-//?? STOIC SCHOOL, [§ 67 

assumed after Chrysippus, and at the same time to 
mark the distinctions of teaching within the school, so 
far as they are known to us and can be made out with 
probability. 

What led the founder of the Stoic school to philo- 
sophy was in the first instance the necessity of finding 
a firm support for his moral life. He first sought to 
satisfy this need with the Cynic Crates. His followers 
also regarded themselves as offshoots from the Cynic 
branch of the Socratic school, and when they wished to 
name the men who had come nearest to their ideal of 
the sage they mentioned Diogenes and Antisthenes be- 
side Socrates. Like these philosophers their object is 
to make man independent and happy by virtue ; like 
them they define philosophy as the practice of virtue. 
{a(TK7](TLs dpsTTJs, studium virtutis, sed per ipsam 
virtutem, Sen. 'Ep.' 89, 5), and make the value of 
theoretic inquiry dependent on its importance for moral 
life. Their conception of moral duties stands close to 
that of the Cynics (cf. § 71 f.). But what essentially 
distinguished the Stoa from Cynicism, and carried even 
its founder beyond the Cynics, is the importance which 
the Stoics ascribe to scientific inquiry. The final 
object of philosophy lies for them in its influence on 
the moral condition of men. But true morality is im- 
possible without true knowledge ; ' virtuous ' and ' wise ' 
are treated as synonymous terms, and though philosophy 
is to coincide with the exercise of virtue, it is at the same 
time defined as 'the knowledge of the divine and human.* 
If Herillus explained knowledge as the highest good 
and final aim of life, he returned in this from Zeno to 



§67] CnARAGTER OF THE STOIG SYSTEM. 233 

Aristotle. On the other hand, it was an attempt to 
retain Stoicism in Cynicism when Aristo not only 
despised learned culture, but also determined to be 
ignorant of dialectics and physics, because the first was 
useless, and the second transcended the powers of 
human knowledge. In the same feeling, Aristo, in his 
' Ethics,' attributed a value only to the discussions of 
principles ; the more special rules of life, on the other 
hand, he explained as indifferent. Zeno himself saw 
in scientific knowledge the indisn:::3able condition of 
moral action, just as he had borrowed from the Aca- 
demicians the division of philosophy into logic, physics, 
and ethics (see p. 167). For this systematic grounding 
of his ethics, he went back primarily to Heracleitus, 
whose physics were commended to him before all 
others by the d ecisive manner in which he carries out 
the thought that all individual things in the world are 
only apparitions of one and the same being ; and that 
there is but one law which governs the course of nature 
and ought to govern the action of men. On the other 
hand, Zeno found a difiiculty in the Platonic and Aristo- 
telian metaphysics. He was repelled by the dualism 
which placed the action of necessity by the side of the 
action of reason in the world (cf. pp. 148, 197) and 
thus seemed to endanger the absolute rule of reason 
in human life. Moreover, the idealism and spiritualism 
of Plato and Aristotle, apart from the difficulties in 
which it had involved its authors, could not be united 
with the nominalism which Zeno had derived from 
Antisthenes (p. 118), while it also appeared too little 
fitted to secure a firm basis for action for Zeno to 



2U THE STOIC SCHOOL, [§67 

adopt it. The more decidedly did lie and his school 

introduce the Socratic-Platonic teleology, and the belief 
in Providence connected with it, into their view of the 
world. In many details also he supplemented the Hera- 
cleitean physics by the Aristotelian. Still greater is the 
influence of the Peripatetic logic on the Stoic, especially 
after Chrysippus. But even in his ethics Zeno was at 
pains to soften the harshness and severity of Cynicism, 
with the most important results. Hence the Stoic philo- 
sophy is by no means a continuation of the Cynic, but it 
has altered and supplemented it with the help of every- 
thing which could be borrowed from earlier systems. 

The three parts of philosophy^ which the Stoics 
enumerated (though Cleanthes added rhetoric to logic, 
politics to ethics, and theology to physics), were not 
always taught in the same order, and different opinions 
prevailed as to their relative value. The highest 
place was sometimes assigned to physics, as the know- 
ledge 'of divine things,' sometimes to ethics, as the 
most important science for men. Zeno and Chrysippus 
however, belong to those who began with logic, passed 
from this to physics, and ended with ethics. 

§ 68. The Stoic Logic. 

Under the term Logic, which perhaps Zeno was 
the first to use, the Stoics since the time of Chrysippus 
comprehended all inquiries which were related to 
inward or outward speech (the \6yo9 EvhidOsTos and 
'7rpo(j>ofJiK6s). They divided, it therefore, into rhetoric 
and dialectic ; and to the latter the doctrine of the cri- 
terion and determination of concepts was sometimes 



§ 68] LOQia 236 

subordinated, and sometimes added as on an equal rank. 
In dialectic they distinguished the doctrine of what was 
significant from that of the thing signified {to ar)fxaivov 
and TO (77] fjuaiv 6 fisvov). Under the former they included 
poetics, the theory of music and grammar, to the 
development of which in Alexandrian and Eoman times 
Stoicism largely contributed. The doctrine of what 
was signified corresponds in all essentials to our formal 
logic. That of the criterion contains the theory of 
knowledge which prevailed in the school. 

In opposition to Plato and Aristotle, the Stoics are 
pronounced empirics. If Antisthenes had recognised 
reality in individual things only, Zeno draws the con- 
clusion that all knowledge must proceed from the 
perception of the individual. According to the Stoics, 
the soul is at its birth like a tabula rasa ; everything 
must be given to it by the objects. The presentation 
{^avTaaia) is, as Zeno and Cleanthes said, an impres- 
sion {rvircDo-Ls) of things in the soul, or, as Chrysippus 
thought, a change of the soul caused by them, which 
instructs us sometimes on external circumstances, and 
sometimes also (as Chrysippus at least expressly re- 
marks) on our internal conditions and activities. 

Out of perception arise our recollections, and from 
these experience (cf. p. 182). By conclusions from 
what is given in perception we arrive at general 
presentations {svvoiai). So far as these are derived 
naturally and without artificial assistance from universal 
experiences, they form those ' common concepts ' (Koival 
EvvoLaL, notitice communes) which determine the con- 
victions of men before any scientific investigation, and 



236 THE STOIC SCHOOL. [§ 68 

are therefore called Trpokrj'y^sLs, a term borrowed from 
Epicurus and apparently first used in this sense by 
Chrysippus. Science rests on regulated demonstration 
and formation of concepts. The chief value of science 
is that it forms a conviction which cannot be shaken 
by objections (^KaraK7}y^is dcrcf)aXr]s kol d/xsraTrTwros 
VTTO X6yov\ or a system of such convictions. As all 
our presentations arise out of perceptions, the value of 
the knowledge they afford must depend on the question 
whether there are perceptions of which it is certain 
that they agree with the objects perceived. But this 
the Stoics maintain. In their view a part of our con- 
ceptions is of such a nature that they compel us to give 
assent to them {avyKaTaTiOscrOai) ; they are connected 
with the consciousness that they can only arise from 
something real, and have direct evidence {hdpysta). 
Hence when we assent to these presentations we appre- 
hend the subject itself. It is in assenting to such a 
presentation that, according to Zeno, conception consists 
{KaTaX7]ylri,9, a term invented by Zeno). The concept, 
then (as distinguished from the svvota, see supra), has 
the same contents as the simple presentation, but is 
distinguished from it by the consciousness of its agree- 
ment with the object. A presentation which carries this 
consciousness with it is called by Zeno a ' conceptual 
presentation ' {(^avraala KaraXrjirTLKii], which in the 
first instance doubtless means a presentation which is 
suited to become a KaraXr^ylns). Consequently he 
maintains that conceptual presentation is the cmteHon 
of truth. But as the ' common concepts * arise out of 
perceptions as their results, these can also be regarded 



§ 68] LOGIC, 237 

as natural standards of truth, so that Chrysippus could 
speak of aXaOr^cns and TrpoXrjyjrcs as criteria.' But the 
possibility of knowledge is proved by the Stoics in the 
last resort by the assertion that otherwise no action 
with rational conviction is possible. Yet they involved 
themselves in the contradiction that on the one hand 
they made perception the standard of truth, and on 
the other looked for perfectly certain knowledge from 
science only. This, indeed, not only corresponded to 
their scientific requirements, but to the practical de- 
mands of a system which made the virtue and happiness 
of men depend on their subordination to a universal law. 
The part of ' dialectic ' which corresponds to our 
formal logic has to do with what is signified or ex- 
pressed (XsfCTov), and this is either complete or incom- 
plete ; the first form concepts, the second propositions. 
The most important of the determinations of the con- 
cepts is the doctrine of categories. The Stoics had 
only four categories in the place of the Aristotelian ten. 
These four were related to each other in such a manner 
that each succeeding one is a closer determination of 
that which precedes, and therefore comprises it. They 
are substratum {viroKSi/jisvov, also ovala) ; property (ro 
iroiov or o ttoios, sc. \6y09), which again subdivides 
into KOivois uotov and ISlcos ttolov ; quality (ttco^ 
sxov), and related qualit} (Trpos tl ttcos s^^w). The 
general concept under which all the categories come is 

' On the other hand, it is im- and Cleanthes, and as regards 

probable that the statement that Zeno it cannot be harmonised 

some of the older Stoics made with Sext. Math. vii. 150 ff., Cic. 

the opdhs x6yos the criterion Acad. ii. 24:. 77 ti. 11. ^2. 
(Biog. vii. 54) refers to Zeno 



238 th:^ stoic school. CI 6g 

by some considered Being (probably Zeno) ; by others 
(Chrysippus) Sometliing (rl). This Something is again 
divided into Being and Not-being. Among complete 
assertions or propositions, judgments or statements 
(d^cco/jiaTa) are those which are either true or false. 
The Stoics distinguished simple (categoric) and com- 
pound judgments, and among the latter they treated 
hypothetical judgments with especial care. In their 
treatment of conclusions also, they gave such prominence 
to the hypothetical and disjunctive that they only were 
to be regarded as conclusions in the proper sense. But 
the scientific value of this Stoic logic is very slight, and 
if in details it enters here and there into more precise 
inquiry, the pedantic external formalism, which Chrys- 
ippus especially introduced into logic, could not be of 
advantage to the general condition of the science. 

§ 69. The Stoic Physics ; the Ultimate Basis, and 
the Universe. 

The view which the Stoics took of the world is 
governed by a triple tendency. In opposition to the 
dualism of the Platonic and Aristotelian metaphysics, 
it aims at the unity of the final cause, and the order 
of the world which proceeded from it : it is monistic. 
In contrast to their idealism, it is realistic and even 
materialistic. Nevertheless, they regarded everything 
in the world as the work of reason, as their ethics de- 
manded, and the final basis of the world was absolute 
reason. Their point of view is essentially teleological 
and theological, and their Monism becomes a Pan- 
theism (cf. p. 233). 



§ 691 PHYSICS. 230 

In the doctrine of the Stoics only bodies are a 
reality. That was real, they urged, which is active 
or passive, but this property is only found in bodies. 
Hence they not only explained a}l substances, without 
excluding the human soul and the Deity, as bodies, but 
aU properties of things were also regarded as existing in 
something corporeal, in the currents of air (Trvsv/jbara), 
by which they are spread abroad, and from which they 
receive the tension (rovos) which keeps them together. 
As this naturally holds good of the soul-bodies also, 
the virtues, affections, wisdom, walking, &c., as condi- 
tions of the soul, are called bodies and living beings. 
That empty space, place, time, and the notion in the 
mind {Xsktov, cf. p. 237), were not to be regarded as 
bodies was only an inconsistency, though, it is true, 
an unavoidable one. In order to be able to explain 
from this point of view the fact that the soul permeates 
the body through its whole extent, and the properties 
of things the things to which they belong, the Stoics, 
in their doctrine of the Kpacns Bi/ oXcov, denied the 
impenetrability of bodies. They maintained that one 
body could penetrate another in all its parts without 
becoming one material with it. Yet, in spite of their 
materialism, the Stoics distinguished between the 
material and the forces at work in it. The first taken 
by itself they regarded as without properties, and 
derived all properties of things from the rational power 
{\6yos) which penetrates them. Even the filling up 
of space was derived from two movements, one causing 
condensation, the other rarefaction, one proceeding 
inward, the other outward. But all the powers opera- 



240 THE STOIC SCHOOL. [§69 

ting in the world come from one original power, as is 
proved by the unity of the world, the combination and 
harmony of all its parts. Like all that is real, this also 
must be corporeal, and is regarded more precisely as 
warm vapour {irvevjia), or fire, for it is warmth whijh 
begets, enlivens, and moves all things. But, on the 
other hand, the perfection of the world and the adapta- 
tion of means to ends, and more especially the rational 
element in human nature, shows that this final cause of 
the world must at the same time be the most perfect 
reason, the kindest, most philanthropic nature — in a 
word, the Deity. It is this just because it consists of 
the most perfect material. As everything in the 
world is indebted to it for its properties, its movement 
and life, it must stand to the universe in the same 
relation as our soul to our body. It penetrates all things 
as the irvsvfMa, or artistic fire (ttO/o ts)(vl/c6i'), enlivening 
them, and containing their germs in itself (\6jol 
aTTSp/jLaTL/coi). It is the soul, the spirit (vjv^), the 
reason {Xoyos) of the world. Providence, destiny, 
nature, universal law, &c. ; for all these conceptions 
denote the same object from various sides. But as in 
the soul of man, though it is present in the whole 
body, the governing part is separate from the rest, and 
a special seat is assigned to it, so also in the soul of 
the universe. The Deity or Zeus has his seat in the 
uttermost circle of the world (according to Archeciemus 
in the centre, and to Cleanthes in the sun), from 
whence he spreads himself through the world. But 
yet his distinction from the world is relative — the di^ 
tinction between what is directly and what is indirectly 



§60] PHYSICS. 241 

divine. In themselves both are the same; there is 
but one and the same being, of which a part takes the 
form of the world, while another part retains its original 
shape, and in that shape confronts the first as the 
operative cause or the Deity. Even this distinction of 
appearance is transitory; it has arisen in time, and 
in time it will pass away. 

In order to form the world the Deity changed the 
fiery vapour, of which it consists, first into air, then 
into water, in which it was immanent as a formative 
power (\6yos airsp/jLan/cos). From the water, beneath 
its operation, a part was precipitated as earth ; another 
part remained water, a third became air, and out of 
air, by still further rarefaction, was kindled the ele- 
mentary fire. Thus was formed the body of the world 
in distinction to its soul, the Deity. But as this 
opposition has arisen in time, so with time it passes away. 
When the course of the present world has come to an 
end, a conflagration will change everything into a 
monstrous mass of fiery vapour. Zeus receives the 
world back again into himself in order to emit it again 
at a preordained time (cf. p. 69 ff.). Hence the 
history of the world and the Deity moves in an endless 
circle between the formation and the destruction of 
the world. As these always follow the same law, 
the innumerable successive worlds are all so exactly 
similar, that in every one the same persons, things, 
and events occur, down to the minutest details, as 
are found in all the rest. For an inexorable necessity, 
a strong connecting chain of cause and effect governs 
all events. In such a strictly pantheistic system 



24-2 THE STOIC SCHOOL. [§62 

this is tliorouglily consistent, and it is also expressed 
in the Stoic definition of fate or destiny, of nature 
and providence. Even the human will makes no 
exception in this respect. Man acts voluntarily, in 
so far as it is his own impulse (opfjurj) which moves kirn ; 
even that which fate ordains, he can do voluntarily, i.e, 
with his own assent ; but do rt he must under any 
circumstances : volentem fata ducunt, nolentem tra- 
hunt. On this connection of all things {crvfjUTrdOsia 
roiv okwv) rests the unity, and on the rationality of 
the cause from which it proceeds, rest the beauty and 
perfection of the world ; and the more eagerly the 
Stoics strove to establish their belief in Providence by 
proofs of every kind, the less could they renounce the 
duty of proving the universal perfection of the world, 
and defending it against the objections to which the 
numerous evils existing in it gave rise. Chrysippus 
appears to have been the chief author of this physical 
theology and theodicy. But we also know of him that 
he carried out the proposition that the world was made 
for gods and men with the pettiest and most super- 
ficial teleology. Even if the leading idea of the Stoic 
theodicy, that the imperfection of the individual 
subserves the perfection of the whole, has formed a 
pattern for all later attempts of a similar kind, yet 
the task of uniting moral evil with their theological 
determinism was for the Stoics the more difficult, 
owing to the blackness of the colours in which they 
were accustomed to define the extent and power of 
this evil. 



§70] NATURE AND MAN 243 

§ 70. Nature and Man, 

In their doctrine of nature the Stoics adhered less 
closely to Heracleitus than to Aristotle, as was inevitable 
in the existing state of knowledge. Leaving out of sight 
some subordinate deviations they followed Aristotle in 
their doctrine of the four elements, and if they found 
it necessary to establish the aether as a fifth body beside 
them, they made no distinction between the ethereal 
and the earthly fire. The first moved in circles, the 
second in straight lines (cf. p. 198). The Stoics again 
and again insisted that all elementary matters constantly 
passed one into another, that all things were to be con- 
ceived in perpetual change, and on this rested the con- 
nection of the world. For this reason it was not their 
object to deny the fixed condition of things as Hera- 
cleitus did, or with Aristotle to limit this change to the 
world beneath the moon (cf. p. 200). 

In their views on the structure of the universe they 
adhered to the prevailing notions. They regarded the 
stars as fixed in their spheres ; their fire was nurtured 
by exhalations from the earth and the waters ; their 
divinity and rationality were derived from the purity of 
this fire. The whole realm of nature is divided into 
four classes ; which are distinguished in such a manner 
that inorganic things are kept together by a simple 
efty, plants by (f)vcns, animals by a soul, men by a 
rational soul. 

Among these creatures man only has a higher 
interest for our philosophers, and in man the soul. 
The soul, like all that is real, has a corporeal nature ; 



244 THE STOW SCHOOL. [§70 

it comes into being witli the body in the physical 
mode of generation ; but the material is the purest and 
noblest, a part of the divine fire which descended into 
the bodies of men when they first arose out of' the 
sether, and passes from the parents to the children as an 
offshoot of their souls. This fire of the soul is nourished 
by the blood, and the governing part of the soul (the 
'^ysfjLovt/cov) has its seat in the heart, the centre of the 
course of the blood (according to Zeno, Cleanthes, 
Chrysippus, &c., from whom only a few authors deviate). 
From hence seven offshoots spread out, viz. the five 
senses, the power of speech and of procreation, to their 
corresponding organs. But the seat of personality lies 
only in the governing part or reason, to which belong 
both the lower and the higher activities of soul, and in 
its power lies the assent to conceptions, as well as to 
conclusions of will — both only in the sense which the 
Stoic determinism allows (cf. p. 242 >. After death, all 
souls, according to Cleanthes, but according to Chrysippus 
only those who had obtained the necessary force, the souls 
of the wise, continue till the end of the world, in order 
to return at that time into the Deity. But the limited 
duration of this continued life did not deter the Stoics, 
and Seneca especially, from describing the blessedness 
of the higher life after death in colours not unlike 
those of Plato and the Christian theologians. 

§ 71. The Stoic Ethics : their general traits. 

If everything obeys the laws of the universe, man 
only is qualified by his reason to know them and 
follow them consciously. This is the leading thought 



1 71] ETHIC8. 245 

of the Stoic doctrine of Ethics. Their supreme prin- 
ciple is in general the life accordiDg to nature — ofioXo- 
yovfiivcos TJj (j)U(TSL ^fjv. That this principle was not 
thus formulated till the successors of Zeno, while he 
required only ofioXoyovjuLsvcos ^fjv, the life consistent 
with itself (Arius Did. in Stob. « Eel.' ii. 132), is the 
more improbable as Diog. vii. 87 definitely states the 
contrary, and even Polemo, Zeno's teacher, had re- 
quired a life according to nature (p. 169). If Cleanthes 
named the nature to which our lives are to correspond 
KOLvy (j)vcrc9, and Chrysippus called it universal and 
more especially human nature, the correction is chiefly 
verbal. The most universal impulse of nature is in 
every creature the impulse to self-preservation ; only 
what serves this end can have a value (d^la) and con- 
tribute to its happiness ( svBaifjLOVia, svpota ^tov). Hence 
for a rational being that only has a value which is in 
accordance with nature ; for it virtue only is a good, 
and in virtue alone consists its happiness, which con- 
sequently is not connected with any further condition 
(virtue is avTapKT^s irpos ttjv svSaijjbovlav). Conversely, 
the only evil is vice {/caKca). All else is indifferent 
(dBidcpopov) ; life, health, honour, possessions, &c., are 
not goods ; death, sickness, contempt, poverty, &c., are 
not evils. Least of all can pleasure be considered a good, 
or the highest good, and sought for its own sake. 
Pleasure is a consequence of our activity, if this is of the 
right kind (for doing right ensures the only true satis- 
faction), but it can never be its aim. If all Stoics did 
not go so far as Cleanthes, who would not have pleasure 
reckoned among things according to nature, yet all 



246 THE STOIC SCHOOL. [§71 

denied that it had any value by itself. For this reason 
they sought the special happiness of the virtuous man 
in freedom from disturbance, in repose of spirit;, and 
inward independence. As virtue alone has a value for 
men, the effort to attain it is the most universal law of 
his nature. This conception of law and duty is more 
prominent among the Stoics than among earlier moral 
philosophers. But as the rational impulses are accom- 
panied in man with irrational and unmeasured im- 
pulses or passions * (which Zeno reduced to four main 
passions — pleasure, desire, anxiety, and fear), the Stoic 
virtue is essentially a battle with the passions ; they 
are an irrational and morbid element (appcoarTjfjLara, 
and if they become habitual, voo-ol '^v^v^) > ^^^J must 
not only be regulated (as the Academicians and Peri- 
patetics wished) but eradicated. Our duty is to attain 
apathy, or freedom from passions. In opposition to 
the passions, virtue consists in the rational quality of 
the soul. The first condition is a right notion in 
regard to our conduct ; virtue, therefore, is called 
knowledge, and want of virtue want of knowledge. 
But with this knowledge, in the mind of the Stoics, 
strength of mind and will (rovos, svTovia, l(rxys, 
Kpdros), on which Cleanthes especially laid weight, is 
so directly connected that the essence of virtue can be 
equally well found in it. Zeno considered insight 
{^(f)p6v7](ns) to be the common root of all virtues; 
Cleanthes, strength of soul ; Aristo, health. From the 
time of Chrysippus it is usual to seek it in wisdom 
(aocpia) as the science of divine and human thing"-, 

' nddoSf defined as &\oyos rl/vxvs Kiyrjais, or dp/xi] v\€oya.^ov(ra. 



§71] ETHICS, 247 

From wisdom four cardinal virtues were thought to 
arise, which were in their turn variously divided : in- 
sight, bravery, self-control {a-(o(f>poavp7]), and justice. 
Cleanthes, however, put endurance {iyKpdrsta) in the 
place of insight. According to Aristo (and in reality 
according to Cleanthes also), the different virtues are 
distinguished only by the cbjects in which they express 
themselves ; but Chrysippus and later writers assume 
internal and qualitative differences between them. 
Yet they adhered to the principle that as expressions of 
one and the same feeling they were indissolubly con- 
nected ; where one virtue is, of necessity all must be; 
and similarly where one vice is, all must be. Hence all 
virtues are equal in merit, all vices in depravity. It is, 
in fact, merely a matter of feeling ; this alone makes the 
fulfilment of duty (/cadrj/cov) a virtuous action (/car- 
6p6co/ia) ; the form in which it is expressed is in- 
different. This feeling, according to the Stoic belief, 
must be altogether present or not present at all. Virtue 
and vice are qualities which admit of no difference of 
degree {Bcadsascs — not merely s^sis) ; there is nothing 
intermediate between them ; no man can possess them 
in part; he must either have them or be without 
them ; he must be virtuous or vicious, a sage or a fool, 
and therefore the change from folly to wisdom is 
momentary ; while proficients (ttpokotttovtss), men are 
still fools. The wise man is the ideal of all perfec- 
tion, and as this is the only condition of happiness, 
he is the ideal of all happiness, while the fool is 
the pattern of all vice and misery. The first, as 
the Stoics set forth with declamatory pathos, ie 



248 THE STOIC SCHOOL. L§71 

alone free, alone beautiful, rich, happy, &c. He 
possesses all virtues and all knowledge ; in all things 
he does what is right and he alone does it ; he is the 
only real king, statesman, poet, prophet, pilot, &c. 
He is entirely free from needs and sorrows, and the 
only friend of the gods. His virtue is a possession 
which cannot be lost (or at most, as Chrysippus allows, 
through disease of mind); his happiness is like that of 
Zeus, and cannot be increased by duration. The fool, 
on his part, is thoroughly bad and miserable, a slave, 
a beggar, a blockhead ; he cannot do what is right, or 
anything that is not wrong ; all fools are lunatics {iras 
a<f)p(jdv fiaivsrat). But, in the belief of the Stoics, all 
men, with few exceptions, and those rapidly disappear- 
ing, are fools. Even to the most celebrated statesmen 
and heroes at most the inconsistent concession is made 
that they are afflicted with the common vices of man- 
kind to a less degree than other people. 

In all this the Stoics are essentially followers of 
the principles of Cynicism, with the alterations which 
arose from the more scientific establishment and expo- 
sition of their principles. Yet Zeno could not hide 
from himself that these doctrines required considerable 
limitations and modifications. These modifications 
were not only the condition on which they could pass 
beyond the narrow Hmits of a sect, and become an 
historical power ; they arose out of the common pre- 
suppositions of the Stoic ethics. A system which 
in practice recognised harmony with nature, and in 
theory universal conviction, as the standard, could not 
place itself in such striking contradiction to either, as 



S 71J ETHICS. 249 

Antisthenes and Diogenes had done without scruple. 
Hence, in the doctrine of goods, three classes are dis- 
tinguished among morally indififerent things; those 
•which are according to nature and therefore have a 
value (af/a) being desirable and preferable (7r/30'??7//<8^'a) 
in themselves ; those which are against nature, and 
therefore without value {aira^ia) and to be avoided 
{aTTOTrporjy/jisva) ; and finally those which have neither 
merit nor demerit, the aBcdipopa in the narrower sense. 
Aristo, who contested this division, and saw the 
mission of man {raXos) in entire indifference to goods, 
by thus returning from Zeno to Antisthenes drew 
upon himself the reproach that he made all action on 
principle impossible. Herillus, it is true, deviated 
from Zeno in maintaining that a part of things morally 
indifferent, though it could not be referred to the 
final object of life (tsXos'), could yet form a subordinate 
and separate object (vTrorgXtV). Only by this modifica- 
tion of their doctrine of goods was it possible for the 
Stoics to gain a positive relation to the purposes of 
practical life, but it cannot be denied that they fre- 
quently made a use of it which it is impossible to har- 
monise with the strictness of the Stoic principles. In 
connection with the relation to what is desirable or the 
reverse stood the conditioned or ' intermediate ' duties 
{fisaa KaOrjKovTo), which are distinguished from the 
perfect {KaropOco^ara). In all these it is a ques- 
tion of rules which lose their force under certain 
circumstances. As, moreover, a relative valuation of 
certain aScd^opa is allowed and even required, so also 
is the apathy of the wise man softened to the degree 



250 THE STOIC SCHOOL. [|71 

that it is allowed that the beginnings of the passions 
are found even in him, thongh they do not win his absent, 
and certain rational emotions {svirdOsiai) are found in 
him only. Finally, the less that the Stoics ventured 
to name any one in their midst a wise man, the more 
doubtfully that many among them expressed themselves 
in this respect with regard to Socrates and Diogenes, 
the more unavoidable was it that the men who were 
* Proficients ' should find a place in ever increasing 
importance between the fools and the wise, until at 
length they are hardly distinguishable from the wise 
in the Stoic descriptions. 

§ 72. Continuation. Applied Morals, The Relation 
of Stoicism to Religion. 

If discussions on separate moral relations and 
duties occupy universally a large space in the post- 
Aristotelian period, the Stoics (with the exception of 
Aristo, cf. p. 233) are more especially inclined to them. 
They appear to have had a peculiar predilection for 
the casuistical questions to which the collision of 
duties gives rise. Important as discussions of this 
kind were for the practical influence of Stoic ethics, 
and for the spread of purer moral conceptions, their 
scientific value was not very great, and the treatment 
appears at times to have been very trivial. So far as we 
know them, they are characterised by a double effort • 
on the one hand, they tend to make the individual in- 
dependent of everything external in his moral self- 
certainty; on the other, to be just to the duties which 
arise out of his relation to the greater whole of which 



§72] ETHICS. 261 

he is a part. In the first sphere lie the traits which 
mark Stoicism as a descendant of Cynicism; in the 
second, those by which it surpassed and supplemented 
Cynicism. Perfect independence of everything which 
does not influence our moral nature, elevation above 
external relations and bodily conditions, the self-suffi- 
ciency of the wise, the freedom from needs such as 
Diogenes enjoyed, is also an ideal of the Stoics. If the 
cynical mode of life is not generally required, yet it is 
found worthy of the philosopher in case circumstances 
allow it. The principle that the moral character of actions 
depends only on the feelings, and not on the external 
act, misled the Stoics, as it misled their predecessors, 
into many strange and one-sided assertions, though the 
most repellent objections brought against them in this 
respect are in part purely hypothetical, and in part 
appear to have been put forward as a deduction from 
views which they controverted. Finally, in order to 
secure for men their independence under any circum- 
stances, they permitted voluntary departure from life 
{s^aycoyT]). This was not only a refuge from extreme 
distress, but they saw in it the noblest preservation of 
moral freedom, a step by which a man proved that he 
regarded life among things indifferent, and which he 
is justified in taking whenever circumstances make it 
appear to be more in accordance with nature that he 
should leave his earthly life than remain in it. Zeno, 
Clean thes, Eratosthenes, Antipater, and many other 
Stoics, ended their lives in this manner. 

Independently as the Stoic confronted everything 
which is not himself, he nevertheless felt himself closely 



252 THE STOIC SCHOOL, [§72 

connected with his kind. By virtue of his rationality 
man feels himself a part of the universal whole, and he is 
thus pledged to work for this whole ; he knows that he 
is naturally akin to all rational beings, looks on them 
all as homogeneous and having equal rights, and stand- 
ing under the same laws of nature and reason ; and he 
regards it as their natural aim to live for one another. 
Thus the impulse to society is founded immediately on 
human nature, which requires the two primary condi- 
tions of society, justice and humanity. Not merely 
all wise men, the Stoics say, are friends by nature, they 
ascribe u .iversally so high a value to friendship that 
they do not succeed in bringing their principles of the 
self-sufficiency of the wise entirely into harmony with 
this need of friendship. All the other connections of 
men are also recognised by them as having a moral im- 
portance. They recommend marriage, and would have it 
carried out in a pure and moral spirit. If they could not 
take any hearty part in politics, yet in the philosophical 
schools of later antiquity it was the Stoics who occupied 
themselves most minutely with the duties of civic 
life, and who trained the largest number of indepen- 
dent political characters. In their view, it is true, the 
connection of a man with the whole of humanity was 
more important than the connection of the individual 
with his nation. Cosmopolitanism took the place of 
politics, and of this the Stoics were the most zealous 
and successful prophets. Since it is the similarity of 
reason in the individuals on which all community among 
men rests, the two must be co-extensive. All men are 
akin. They have all a similar origin and the same 



§72j ETHICS, 253 

mission. All stand under one law, are citizens of 
one state, members of one body. All men as men 
have a claim to our beneficence. Even slaves can 
claim their rights at our hands, and show themselves 
worthy of our respect. Even to our enemies we, as 
men, owe clemency and ready support. This last point 
is often and earnestly insisted upon among the Stoics 
of the Roman times. 

When this connection of all rational beings is carried 
further we attain to the conception of the world as a 
community consisting of gods and men.* To the laws 
and arrangements of this community unconditional 
subjection is demanded. It is in this obedience to 
the laws of the universe, and submission to destiny, 
upon which the Stoics are never weary of insisting, 
that the essential part of religion lies from their point 
of view. Piety is the knowledge of the worship of the 
gods {siTKTTrjfirj OsMV Ospairslas^ Diog. vii. 119 ; Stob. 
' Eel.' ii. 106). But in its essence worship of the gods 
consists in correct notions about them, in obedience to 
their will, and imitation of their perfection (Sen. ' Ep.' 
95. 47, Epict. 'Man.' 31. 1), in purity of heart and 
will (Cic. ' N. D.' ii. 28, 71 ; Sen. « Fr.' 123) ; in a word, 
in wisdom and virtue. True religion is not dis- 
tinguished from philosophy. With regard to anything 
further which was contained in the national religion the 
Stoics had much to say. The impropriety of the an- 
thropomorphic belief in deities, the unworthy character of 

* 2<5<rTrj)ua in 6ewv /col avdpd- Chrysippus) : iroXis ?/ (rvue<rTT}Kep 

woov Kol rdv '4v€Ka roircav y^yo- e| avOpctnrcov re /col deuv (Muson. 

v6Ta>v (Diog. vii. 138; Stob. ap. Stob. ' Floril.' 40. 9). 
* Ed.* i 444 after Posidonius and 



254 TUB STOIC SCHOOL. §'72] 

the mythical narratives about gods and heroes, the inanity 
of the traditional ceremonies, are condemned from the 
time of Zeno by older and younger members of the 
school, and by no one more severely than Seneca of 
the authors known to us. Yet the Stoics as a whole 
are not opponents, but defenders of the national religion, 
partly, as it seems, because they find a proof of its truth 
in its general recognition, partly and more especially 
because they were unwilling to withdraw from the mass 
of men a support of morality which for them was 
indispensable. Philosophical theology was thought to 
form the proper contents of mythology. In the gods 
of mythology the one god of the Stoics was to be 
worshipped directly or indirectly; directly under the 
form of Zeus, and indirectly under the form of the other 
gods so far as these are nothing but representatives of 
divine powers, which manifest themselves to us in the 
stars, the elements, the fruits of the earth, in great 
men and benefactors of mankind. The means adopted 
by the Stoics to prove this philosophic truth (^ucrt/cos 
\6yos) in the myths was allegorical interpretation. 
Hitherto this mode of interpretation is only found in 
isolated instances ; but by the Stoics, and so far as we 
know by Zeno, it was made into a system, while 
Cleanthes and Chrysippus applied it to such an extent 
and with such incredible caprice and tastelessness, that 
they could hardly be surpassed in this respect by their 
successors on heathen, Jewish, and Christian ground. 
Prophecy, to which they ascribed the greatest value, was 
treated in the same spirit by Zeno, Cleanthes, Sphj^rus, 
and especially by Chrysippus and his successors. 



§ 72] UELIGION, 266 

What was irrational was artificially rationalised ; by 
means of the interconnection of all things (avfiTrddsca, 
p. 242), future events could be announced by certain 
natural signs which could be known and explained 
partly through natural gifts arising from the relation- 
ship of God and man, and partly through scientific 
observation. No narrative of fulfilled predictions was 
so marvellous or poorly supported that it could not be 
justified in this manner. Hence the Stoics, perhaps 
before Pause tins, distinguished a triple theology: that 
of the philosophers, that of the statesmen, and that of 
the poets; and against the last, which is in truth 
nothing but the mythology of the national religion, 
they brought the most serious objections. Yet this 
did not deter them from repressing vigorously any 
serious attack on the popular religion. This is proved 
by Cleanthes' relation to Aristarchus of Samos, and the 
severity of Marcus Aurelius towards the Christians. 

II. The Epicurean Philosophy. 
§ 73. Epicurus and his School. 

Epicurus, the son of Neocles the Athenian, was 
born in Samos in December 342 or January 341 B.C. 
Introduced to the doctrine of Democritus by Nausi- 
phanes, and instructed by Pamphilus the Platonist, he 
came forward as a teacher in Colophon, Mitylene, and 
Lampsacus, and after 306 B.C. in Athens. Here his 
garden was the meeting-place of a circle which was filled 
with the deepest admiration for Epicurus and his teach- 
ing, and united intimate social intercourse with philo- 



258 THE EPICUREAN SCHOOL. [§ 73 

sophic studies. Women as well as men belonged to 
it. His doctrines were embodied in a number of 
treatises, to the style of which he devoted little care.' 
When he died, in 270 B.C., Hermarchus undertook to 
be leader of the society ; Metrodorus, the favourite dis- 
ciple of Epicurus, and Polyaenus had died before their 
master. Next to these we may mention among Epi- 
curus' personal disciples Colotes, and Idomeneus, the 
historian. Polystratus also, the successor of Her- 
marchus, may have belonged to them. Polystratus was 
succeeded by Dionysius, whose successor was Basilides. 
Protarchus of Bargylium appears to have belonged 
to the second quarter of the second century, Demetrius 
the Laconian and Apollodorus (o KT^irorvpavvos) to the 
third. The school became widely spread in the Roman 
world, in which, about the middle of the second cen- 
tury B.C., C. Amafinius met with approval with his Latin 
exposition of the Epicurean doctrine. The pupil and 
successor of Apollodorus, Zeno of Sidon, taught with 
great success in Athens down to 78 B.C. His fellow- 
disciple and later successor Phsedrus was heard by 
Cicero at Rome as early as 90 B.C. Phocdrus was fol- 
lowed by Patro at Athens ; in Rome, Siro (Sciro) the 
teacher of Virgil was busy about 50 R c. anr! Philn- 
demus, of whose writings many were found in Hercu- 
laneum. To the same period belongs the poet of 
the school, Lucretius Cams (apparently 94-54 B.C.). 
Numerous other names of Epicureans are known to 

' We possess (through Diog. a number of Herculanean fr^.g- 

X. 86 ff., 8t IT., 122 lY.; 139 lY.) mcntsopocially from the /V///.wjt, 

three didactic let lers and a sketch and other fragments in Plutarch, 

of the ethics (the Kvptai ^6^ai), also Cicero, Seneca, and others. 



§78] i:ricuRUS and ins school, 257 

us ; the school, the spread of which is proved by 
Diog. X. 9, about 230 a.d., and by Lactantius, * Inst., 
iii. 17, about 320 A.D., became extinct in the fourth cen- 
tury. But its capacity for scientific development was 
small, and if Epicurus was at pains to keep his pupils 
strictly to the letter of his doctrines (Diog. x. 12 etc.), 
he succeeded so well that none of them is known to 
have made any attempt worth mentioning towards 
their development. 

§ 74. The Epicurean System. The Canonic, 

With Epicurus far more exclusively than with Zeno 
his philosophic system is simply a means for practical 
objects.' He cared little for learned investigation and 
the mathematical sciences, to which he objected that 
they were useless and did not correspond to reality; 
and indeed his own education in both respects was very 
insufficient. Even in dialectics he ascribed a value only 
to the inquiries into the criterion. This part of his 
system he called the Canonic. Physics in his opinion are 
only needed because the knowledge of natural causes 
frees us from the fear of the gods and death, and a 
knowledge of human nature shows us what we ought 



* Our sources for the know- far as they have been deciphered 

ledge of it, besides the writings and published ; the fragments of 

and fragments mentioned in the jMctrodorus, Colotes, &c., Diog. x. 

previous note, are: Lucretius, 28 ff. ; and the informal ion which 

Be Reruni Naturd, who seems to we owe to Cicero, Plutarch, 

keep entirely to the physics of Sextus Empiricus, Seneca, SSto- 

Epicurus ; the writings of Philo- baeus, and other*. 
demuB found in Herculaneum, so 



258 THE EPICUREAN SCHOOL. [§74 

to desire or avoid. Hence this part of philosophy also 
has no independent importance. 

If with the Stoics empiricism and materialism are 
connected with practical onesidedness, the same con- 
nection is still more strongly marked in Epicurus. 
It is entirely in the spirit of an ethical system, 
which regards the individual in himself only, that the 
material Individual is looked upon as the originally 
Keal, and sensuous perception as the source of our pre- 
sentations. If man finds his highest mission in pre- 
serving his individual life from disturbance, he must 
not seek in the universe for the traces of a reason, on 
which he had to support himself and to whose laws he 
must become subject. Nor must he make any attempt 
to secure a theoretic basis for his conduct by a know- 
ledge of these laws. The world presents itself to him 
as a mechanism ; within this he arranges his life as well 
as he can, but he need not know more of it than that 
upon which his own weal or woe depends. For this ex- 
perience and natural intelligence appear to be suffi- 
cient without much logical apparatus. 

Agreeably with this point of view Epicurus in 
his Canonic primarily regards perception as the 
criterion of truth in theory, and in practice (see § 76) 
the feeling of pleasure and pain. Perception is the 
Obvious {svEpysLo) which is always true ; we cannot 
doubt it without rendering knowledge and action im- 
possible (p. 237). Even the deceptions of the senses 
prove nothing against it, for in them the fault lies, not 
in the perception, but in the judgment. The picture 
which we believed that we saw has really touched our 



§t4] THE CANONIC, 259 

soul, but we have not the right to assume that an 
object corresponds to it. (How we are to distinguish 
those pictures to which there is a corresponding object 
from those to which no object corresponds, we are not 
told.) Out of perceptions arise concepts (7rpo\7]'\]r£ts), 
since that which is repeatedly perceived becomes 
stamped upon the memory. As these concepts relate 
to earlier perceptions, they are always true; hence 
beside perceptions {alaOrjosis) and feelings {irdOrj) 
concepts can be counted as criteria. And as even the 
presentations of the fancy arise, according to Epicurus, 
by the operation of objective pictures present to the 
soul (cf. p. 2^2), these also are included in criteria. 
It is only when we pass beyond perception as such, 
and form, from what we know, an opinion (vTroXrjyfns) on 
what we do not know, that the question arises whether 
this opinion is true or false. In order to be true, an 
opinion, if it refers to coming events, must be con- 
firmed by experience ; if it refers to the secret causes 
of phenomena, it must not be contradicted by them. 
Epicurus, in Diogenes, x. 32, mentions four ways by 
which we pass from perceptions to suppositions (sttl- 
voiai) ; but we must not look for a scientific theory of 
induction (as Philodemus shows us, irspl ayfjuslcov) in 
him or in his school. 

§ 75. The Physics of Epicurus. The Gods, 

Epicurus' view of the world was in the first in- 
stance determined by the desire to exclude the inter- 
ference of supernatural causes from the world. Such an 
interference must deprive man of all inward security 



260 THE EPICUREAN SCHOOL. [§ 75 

and keep him in constant fear. This result the philo- 
sopher hopes to obtain most certainly by a purely 
mechanical explanation of nature. When he looked for 
such among the older systems (for he was neither in- 
clined nor qualified to form a theory of his own in 
natural science) none corresponded to his object more 
completely than that which seemed to afford the best 
points of connection with his ethical individualism — 
which had first attracted him, and was perhaps alone 
accurately known to him. This was the atomism of 
Democritus. Like Democritus, Epicurus explains the 
atoms and the void as the primary elements of all 
things. He takes the same view of the atoms as 
Democritus, only he ascribes to them a limited, not an 
infinite variety of shapes. By virtue of their weight 
the atoms descend in empty space ; but as they all fall 
with equal rapidity (as Aristotle pointed out) and hence 
cannot dash upon one another, and also because such 
an assumption seemed necessary for the freedom of 
the will, Epicurus assumed that they deviated at will 
to an infinitesimal degree from the perpendicular line. 
Hence they dash on one another and become com- 
plicated, rebound, are partly forced upward, and thus 
give rise to those circular movements which create 
innumerable worlds in the most different parts of end- 
less space. These worlds, which are separated by 
portions of merely empty space {fisTa/coafiia, inter- 
mundia), present the greatest variety of conditions ; 
but they have all arisen in time, and with time they 
will again pass away. 

As the origin of the world is said to have been brought 



§ 75] PHYSICS. 261 

about by purely mecbanical causes, so Epicurus ascribes 
the greatest value to the fact that every individual thing 
in the world is to be explained in a purely mechanical 
manner and to the exclusion of all teleological points 
of view. But how we explain it is a matter of little 
importance. If we can only be certain that something 
has its natural causes, it matters little what the 
causes are. For the explanation of separate pheno- 
mena of nature Epicurus leaves us the choice of all the 
possible hypotheses, and does not absolutely reject such 
obvious absurdities as that the moon really waxes and 
wanes. That the sun is no larger, or but a little larger, 
than it seems to be, was persistently maintained by 
his school, no doubt in order that the credibility of the 
senses might not be impaired. 

Living beings were thought to come originally from 
the earth. In the first instance there were among 
them many marvellous forms, but only those which 
were capable of life have been preserved (cf. p. 74). In 
regard to the early condition and the gradual develop- 
ment of man we find attractive and intelligent 
suppositions in Lucretius (v. 922 ff.). The soul of 
animals and men consists not only of elements of fire, 
air, and breath, but also of a peculiar matter, yet more 
delicate and mobile, which is the cause of perception, 
and is derived from the souls of the parents. But in 
men a rational part is added to the irrational part of 
the soul, which (like the Stoic r/ys/uLovLfcov) has its seat 
in the breast, while the other permeates the whole 
body. At death the atoms of the soul are scattered, 
since they are no longer held together by the body. 



262 THE EPICUREAN SCHOOL, [§7^ 

This to Epicurus is a great comfort, for only the 
conviction that we do not exist after death can set us 
free from the fear of the terrors of Hades. Of the 
activities of soul, not only are perceptions explained 
(with Democritus) by a contact of the soul with the 
pictures (etSwXa) wliich are given off from the surface 
of bodies and reach the soul through the senses, but 
the same explanation is given of the presentations of 
the fancy (^(fiavracrTiKal kiril^dkaX ttjs hiavolas). In 
the latter, however, the soul is touched by pictures of 
which the objects are no longer in existence, or which 
have first formed themselves in the air from the com- 
mingling of different idola, or from new combinations 
of atoms. Through the movements which the pictures 
create in the soul, when forcing themselves into it, 
earlier movements of the soul are awakened anew, and 
this is recollection. From the combination of a picture 
of recollection with a perception arises opinion, and 
with it the possibility of error (p. 259). The will 
consists in motions which are brought about in the 
soul by presentations, and pass from it to the body. 
The freedom of the will, in the sense of pure inde- 
terminism, was strongly maintained by Epicurus, who 
also vigorously controverted the Stoic fatalism. Of 
any deeper psychological investigations into this point 
we find no trace in him. 

By these physics Epicurus hopes to have removed 
for ever the fear of the gods as well as the fear of 
death. It is true that he will not attack the belief in 
the gods. The universality of this belief seems to him 
a proof that it is founded on real experience, and the 



§76] THE GODS, 263 

pictures, from the appearance of whicli lie can only 
explain it (see above), arise, at least in part, from real 
beings, and are perceptions, not merely pictures of 
imagination. Moreover, he feels the necessity of 
seeing his ideal of happiness realised among the gods. 
But he can only share the prevailing notions about 
the gods to a limited extent, for he is distinctly 
opposed to the relation in which they stand to the 
world. He assumes a plurality of gods — in fact he 
regards them as innumerable ; and he also considers it 
as self-evident that they should have the shape of man, 
as the most beautiful that can be conceived. He also 
attributes to them the distinction of sex, the need of 
food, and language, even the Grreek language. But the 
happiness and immortality of the gods, the two leading 
marks of his conception of deity, require in his opinion 
that they should have fine bodies of light instead of 
our coarse bodies, and live in the intermundia, for in 
any other case they would be affected by the decay of 
the worlds in which they dwelt, and disturbed in their 
happiness by the prospect of this misfortune. Their 
happiness also requires that they should not be bur- 
dened with the care of the world and men, which the 
belief in providence lays upon them. Still more 
indispensable is this assumption for the repose of man, 
who has no more dangerous enemy than the opinion 
that higher powers interfere in the world. Epicurus 
is therefore the most pronounced opponent of this 
belief in any form. He can only derive the national 
religion from uncertainty and, above all, from timidity ; 
and he finds the Stoic doctrine of providence and 



264 THE EPICUREAN SCHOOL. [§76 

deritiny, which are contradicted by the actual nature of 
the world, even more comfortless than the absurdities 
of mythology. That he has freed men from this 
delusion, from the fear of the gods {religio\ which 
oppressed them, is extolled as his immortal service by 
his admirers (as Lucretius, i. 62 ff. ), while on the other 
hand, they commend his piety and his participation in 
the traditional worship of the gods. 

§ 76. The Ethics of Epicurus, 

As Epicurus in his Physics explained the atoms 
as the source of all being, he regards the individual in 
his Ethics as the aim of all action. The measure 
{Kavcov) for distinguishing good and evil is our feeling 
{irdOos, p. 259). The only absolute good is pleasure, 
after which all living things strive ; the only absolute 
evil is pain, which all avoid. Hence in general 
Epicurus, like Aristippus, regards pleasure as the final 
object of our action. Yet by pleasure he does not 
mean the individual sensations of pleasure as such, 
but the happiness of an entire life. Our judgment 
must decide on separate enjoyments or pains by their 
relation to this. Further, he believes that the real 
importance of pleasure consists only in the satisfaction 
of a need, and hence in the removal of what is not 
pleasurable ; our final object is not positive pleasure, 
but freedom from pain ; not the motion, but the repose 
of the spirit. As the most essential conditions of this 
repose lie in the state of our feelings, Epicurus regards 
the pleasures and pains of the mind as far more im- 



§ 76] ETHICS, 265 

portant than those of the body. For however publicly 
and plainly he declares (in spite of some different 
expressions) that all pleasure and pain arise in the 
last resort from bodily conditions, yet he observes that 
only present delights and pains act upon the body, 
whereas the soul is moved by those of the past and 
the future. These feelings, which rest upon memory, 
hope, and fear, are in his view so much the more 
violent that he feels himself justified in extolling the 
absolute power of the spirit over bodily pains with the 
same exaggeration as the Cynics and Stoics. The 
severest pains are only of short duration and quickly 
put an end to our life ; the less severe can be borne 
and overcome by superior intellectual enjoyments. 

Virtue is only a condition of repose of mind, but 
it is so indispensable a condition that, even according 
to Epicurus, happiness is indissolubly connected with 
virtue, however small the independent value which his 
system allows us to attribute to it. Insight frees us 
from the prejudices which disturb us, from empty 
fancies and wishes ; it teaches us the true art of life. 
Self-control preserves us from sorrows by correct con- 
duct in regard to pleasure and pain, bravery by the 
contempt of death and suffering ; to justice we owe it 
that no fear of punishment disturbs our equanimity. 
Epicurus himself led a pattern life, and his sayings fre- 
quently exhibit a purity of sentiment which goes far 
beyond their unsatisfactory scientific foundation. His 
ideal of the wise man approaches closely to the Stoic. 
If he does not ascribe to him either the Stoic apathy 
or their contempt of sensual enjoyment, yet he repre- 



2G6 THE EPICUREAN SCHOOL. [§76 

sents him as so completely master of his desires that 
they never lead him astray. He describes him as so 
independent of all external things, his happiness as so 
complete, and his wisdom as so inalienable, that he 
can say of him no less than the Stoics of their ideal, 
that he walks as a god among men, and even on bread 
and water he need not envy Zeus. 

In harmony with this ideal Epicurus' rules of life 
aim in the first instance at procuring for the individual, 
as such, a contented and independent existence by 
liberating him from prejudices and controlling his 
desires. Living himself an unusually moderate and 
contented life, he urges others to contentment. Even 
of actual desires only a part aims at what is necessary ; 
by far the greatest portion seeks what is unnatural 
and useless. Among the latter Epicurus especially 
places the desire for honour and glory. Hence he does 
not require the suppression of the sensual impulses ; 
he will not forbid a rich enjoyment of life, but all the 
more vehemently does he insist that a man shall not 
make himself dependent on these things. The point 
is not to use little, but to need little. A man is 
not to bind himself absolutely even to life. Epicurus 
allows him to withdraw himself from intolerable 
miseries by a voluntary death, though he is of opinion 
that such miseries rarely happen. 

It was more difficult for Epicurus to establish the 
necessity and importance of the social life of man. 
Here his system opened but one path — the considera- 
tion of the advantages which accrue to men from their 
union with one another. Even these the philosopher, 



S 76] ETHICS. 267 

to whom freedom from trouble is the highest good, seeks 
rather in protection against injuries than in any posi- 
tive advancement of the individual by moral commu- 
nion with others. With him this holds good especially 
of the State. The aim of all laws is the security of 
society against injustice. It is only the wise who, being 
convinced of its harmfulness, refrain from injustice 
voluntarily ; the mass of men must be deterred from 
it by punishment. To enjoy this security without 
being disturbed in it by the trouble and danger, from 
which a statesman cannot withdraw himself, appeared 
to the philosopher as the most desirable object. Hence 
he recommends obedience to the laws, because a man 
who breaks them can never be free from the fear of 
punishment; but he considers it bett^'to hold aloof 
from all public life unless special circumstances require 
the contrary. His motto is XdOs ^looaas. He has 
doubts even about family life and marriage. The more 
lively, both in him and his school, was the feeling for 
friendship. If it seems inadequate to establish this 
relation only on the value of the mutual support and 
the feeling of security which arise from it, yet, in 
fact, he went far beyond these limits. The Epicurean 
friendships were famous, like the Pythagorean, and 
the supposed Pythagorean community of goods was 
only rejected by Epicurus because such an arrange- 
ment ought not to be required among friends. 
But it would not have been in harmony with the 
principles of Epicurus to limit his beneficence to the 
circle of his personal friends. In him and in many 
men of his school a mild and philanthropic temper 



268 THE EPICUREAN SCHOOL. [§ 76 

towards all the world is present. In his own conduct 
this is expressed in the saying (among others), that it 
is more pleasant to do a kindness than to receive one. 

III. Scepticism. 
§ 77. Pyrrho and the Pyrrhonians, 

The foundation of the Pyrrhonic School took place 
somewhat earlier than that of the Stoic or Epicurean. 
In its practical aim it approaches the Stoic, but it 
seeks to attain it not by definite scientific conviction, 
but, on the contrary, by despair of any such conviction. 
Pyrrho of Elis had apparently become acquainted with 
the doctrines of the Elean-Megarian school when with 
Anaxarchus (p. 83) he accompanied Alexander to the 
East. At a later time he founded a school of his own 
in his native city, where he lived universally honoured, 
though in i^oor circumstances. The school did not 
spread widely. He lived to be nearly ninety years of 
age, and seems to have died about 270-5 B.C. He left 
no writings behind him ; even in antiquity his doc- 
trines were only known by the treatises of his pupil, 
Timon of Phlius, who subsequently lived in Athens and 
there died, also about ninety years old, after 241 B.C. 

In order to live happily a man ought, according to 
Timon {ap. Euseb. 'Pr. Ev.' xiv. 18) to be clear on 
three matters : What is the nature of things. How we 
are related to them, and What we can gain from 
this relation.* 

To the first two of these questions we can only 
answer, that the nature of things is quite unknown to 



§77] SCEPTICISM. PYRRBO. 269 

us, for perception only shows us things as they appear, 
and not as they are, and our opinions are entirely 
subjective; that we can never maintain anything (ouSez^ 
opi^sLv) ; never ought to say ' this is so,' but only ' this 
seems to me so'; and that a suspension of judgment 
(Jtto^t;, a(f)a(ria, aKaraXvyfrla) is the only correct 
attitude towards things. If we observe this attitude, 
the result, in Timon's belief, is at once arapa^ca, or 
apathy. He who has despaired of knowing anything 
of the nature of things cannot attribute a higher value 
to one thing than another ; he will not believe that 
anything is in itself good or bad, but these conceptions 
are rather to be referred to law and custom. In- 
different to all other things, he will strive after the 
correct mood of temper, or virtue, and thus find happi- 
ness in tranquillity. So far as he is compelled to act, 
he will follow probability, nature, and custom. Pyrrho 
does not seem to have gone further into detail in the 
scientific establishment of these doctrines ; the ten 
Sceptic * tropes,' which later writers ascribe to him, are 
certainly to be ascribed to J^nesidemus (§ 88). Some 
pupils of Timon are mentioced, and again a pupil of 
one of Timon's pupils. But this was the last offshoot 
of the Pyrrhonic Scepticism ; its place was taken after 
the middle of the third century by the Academic. 



§ 78. The New Academy, 

The philosopher who led the Academy in this new 
path was Arcesilaus of Pitane in ^olia (315-241-0 B.C.) 
the successor of Crates (p. 169). We are only im- 



2f0 THE NEW ACADEMY. t§7S 

• 

perfectly acquainted with Ms doctrines, ana as he wrote 
nothing, even the ancients only knew them at third 
hand. According to Cicero, * De Orat.' iii. 18, 67, he 
controverted the possibility of knowing anything by 
the senses or the reason {sensihus aiit animo) ; but 
the main object of his attacks was Zeno's doctrine of 
presentation by concepts. His chief objection, beside 
some more formal criticisms, was his opinion that there 
were no presentations which contained in themselves a 
certain mark of their truth, and this opinion he 
attempted to prove by various applications. He also 
seems to have controverted the Stoic physics and 
theology. In conseqaence he maintained with Pyrrho 
that there was nothing left but suspension of judg- 
ment (sTTOxv)' This point of view he upheld so 
strictly that he would not allow even that principle 
to be asserted as knowledge. For this reason it is the 
more incredible that his scepticism was intended to 
serve only as a preparation for the Platonic dogmatism. 
But he did not allow that the possibility of action 
must be given up with the possibility of knowledge. 
The presentation sets the will in motion, even though 
we do not consider it knowledge, and in order to act 
rationally it is sufficient to follow reason, which forms 
the highest criterion for practical life. 

Arcesilaus was succeeded in the chair by Lacydes 
of Cyrene. Before his death the latter handed over 
the headship of the school (215-4 B.C.) to the Pho- 
cseans Telecles and Evander, who were followed by 
Hegesinus (Hegesilaus). But neither of these nor of 
the rest of the Academicians who are mentioned from 



§78] AncmiLAVS^CARNEAnES, 271 

this period, do we know more than the general fact that 
they remained true to the direction struck out by 
Arcesilaus. The greater is the importance of Car- 
neades, who on this account is called the founder of 
the third or new Academy, while Arcesilaus is re- 
garded as the founder of the second or middle school, 
Philo and Antiochus ( § 8 1) of the fourth and fifth. This 
acute and learned man, who was also famous for the 
persuasive force of his eloquence, was born in Cyrene 
in 213-214 B.C., and became leader of the school long 
before 156 B.C. when he came with the embassy of 
philosophers to Rome (p. 226), and he remained leader 
with great success and honour till his death in 129 B.C. 
He left no writings ; the exposition of his doctrines 
was the work of his pupils, especially of Clitomachus. 
The teaching of Carneades marks the culmination of 
Academic scepticism. If Arcesilaus had chiefly directed 
his attacks against the Stoic doctrine of the criterion, 
Carneades also treats the Stoics, who were the most 
eminent dogmatists of the time, as his chief oppo- 
nents. But he investigated the question of the 
possibility of knowledge on wider grounds, and sub- 
jected the views of the various philosophers to a more 
comprehensive and penetrating criticism than his pre- 
decessors, while at the same time he defined more 
precisely the degrees and conditions of probability. 
First he asked in general terms whether knowledge 
was possible. This question he believed that he must 
answer in the negative, because, (as he proved more in 
detail) there is no kind of conviction which does not 
deceive us, no true presentation to which there is not 



2?2 THE NEW ACADEMY. [§78 

a false one precisely similar. Hence there is no cri- 
terion of truth in the sense of the Stoic * presentation 
in concepts.' In like manner he denied the possibility 
of demonstration, partly because this could only be 
done by proof, and hence by a petitio principii, partly 
because the premisses of the proofs require proof in 
turn, and so on ad infinitum. He examined the 
philosophic systems more in detail, and especially con- 
troverted the Stoic theology on every side. If the 
Stoics inferred the existence of Grod from the teleo- 
logical arrangement of the world, Carneades rejected 
the soundness of this conclusion, as well as the cor- 
rectness of the presupposition on which it rests, on the 
ground of the numerous evils existing in the world. 
He even attacked the conception of Grod by attempting 
to show with great acuteness, and in so far as we know 
for the first time, that the Deity cannot be thought of 
as a living rational creature {^wov Xojlkov) without at- 
tributing to it qualities and circumstances, which are 
at variance with its eternity and perfection. But we 
can here only touch upon his criticism of polytheism 
and his attacks on the Stoic belief in prophecy, with 
which is connected his polemic against the Stoic deter- 
minism. A still greater impression appears to have 
been produced by his criticism of moral notions, of 
which a sample was given in his two lectures, for and 
against justice, delivered at Rome. For this, following 
the pattern of the sophists, he made chief use of the 
contrast of natural and positive right. But our in- 
formation on this point is very imperfect, and in truth 
the accounts of Carneades give us no exhaustive 



§78] CARyEADES, ETC. 273 

picture of his scientific activity. The final result of 
his sceptical discussions was naturally that which had 
been long pronounced: the absolute impossibility of 
knowledge, and the demand for an unconditional sus- 
pension of judgment. If the earlier sceptics had at least 
recognised probability as the standard for our practical 
conduct, Carneades pursued the thought yet further. 
He distinguished three degrees of probability, and 
consequently three kinds of probable presentations: 
those that are probable in themselves, those whose 
probability is confirmed by others connected with them, 
and those in which this holds good of the latter 
presentations also (^(^avraala TriOavrj, (f^avraala Tndavrj 
KoX a7rspi(T7raaT09, and (fyavraala inOavr) kol airspL- 
(TiraaTos fcal TrsptcoBsv/jLsvi]), and he appears to have in- 
vestigated even in details the marks by which we 
are to decide upon probability. How he treated 
ethical questions from this point of view we cannot fix 
with certainty. It is most probable that he adhered to 
the principle of the Old Academy — the life according 
to nature — and found virtue in striving after natural 
goods. 

After Carneades the Academy was conducted by his 
pupils, first the younger Carneades, then Crates— by 
both for but a few years, and then by the most dis- 
tinguished of the body, Clitomachus the Carthaginian, 
who cannot have been born after 175 B*c., and died 
after 110, On his successors cf. § 81. 



SECOND SECTION. 

ECLECTICISM. RENEWED SCEPTICISM. PRECURSORS 
OF NEO-PLATONISM. 

I. Eclecticism. 

5 79. Its Origin and Character, 

Vigorous as were the controversies between the 
philosophic schools of the post-Aristotelian period, it 
was natural that in the course of years these contrasts 
should be softened, and the relationship which, in spite 
of all differences, existed from the first between the 
Academic, Peripatetic, and Stoic schools should make 
itself more distinctly felt. For this purpose two 
factors, operating contemporaneously, were of the 
utmost importance — the success which the Academic 
scepticism obtained through Carneades, and the con- 
nection into which Greece entered with Eome. 

The more seriously the belief of the dogmatic schools 
in the impregnability of their doctrines had been 
shattered by the penetrating criticism of Carneades, the 
more inclined must they have become to return from 
these distinctive doctrines which were exposed to so 
many objections, to those convictions upon which men 
could be essentially in harmony, and which even their 
critic himself recognised as the standard in practical 
conduct, and therefore sufficient in the most imjiortant 
matter. On the other hand, the more strongly that 
even Carneades, in the development of his doctrine of 



§ 79] ORIGIN OF ECLECTICISM. 276 

probability, had expressed the necessity of securing 
such practical standards for himself, the more easily 
would his school, in pursuing the same direction, come 
to lay the chief weight on this part of their doctrine. 
Thus they departed more and more from scepticism, for 
that which was to Carneades only probable obtained in 
time the value of something certainly known. 

The Koman spirit which now began to have an in- 
fluence on Greek science contributed to the same result. 
After the conquest of Macedonia by the Komans (168 
B.C.) Greece was in fact — what it became, more and more, 
in form — a part of the Koman Empire. Ere long, under 
the influence of Flamininus, ^milius Paulus, Scipio 
iEmilianus, and his friends, there arose a scientific 
intercourse between Greece and Eome which carried 
Greek teachers to Kome and young Eomans in ever- 
increasing numbers to the philosophic schools of Athens 
and other Greek cities. More important than the 
philosophic embassy (p. 226) was the stay of Pansetius 
(§ 80) at Eome and the contemporaneous spread of 
Epicureanism among the Eomans (p. 256). After the 
beginning of the last century B.C. Greek philosophy 
was regarded in Eome as an indispensable part of 
higher culture. If the Greeks were in the first instance 
the teachers and the Eomans the pupils, yet it was 
natural that the Greeks should adapt themselves more 
or less to the needs of their distinguished and influ- 
ential hearers, and that in their intercourse with the 
Eoman world they should be touched by the spirit 
which had created it. It was in harmony with this 
spirit to estimate each view according to its value for 



276 ECLECTICISM. [§79 

practical life rather than its scientific soundness. 
Hence these relations must also have contributed to 
nourish the inclination towards an amalgamation of 
the philosophic schools, to throw their distinctive doc- 
trines into the background, and bring forward what 
was common to all, especially in points of practical 
importance. But in order to be able to choose what is 
true or probable from different views, not immediately 
reconcilable, a criterion must be provided for this 
object, and thus men were finally brought to certain 
convictions, which it was thought were fixed in us before 
any demonstration, and which maintained their truth 
by general recognition, by the consensus gentium* 

This eclecticism first appeared in the Stoic school ; 
in the sequel it became more prevalent in the Academic, 
and found an entrance even into the Peripatetic. In 
the Epicurean school, on the other hand, we cannot 
find any important deviation from the doctrine of its 
founder, though Zeno of Sidon, when with Carneades, 
whom he attended as well as ApoUodorus, acquired a 
more dialectic method than was usual in the school. 
That the physician Asclepiades of Bithynia (100-50 
B.C.), like Heracleides, put original bodies {dvap/ioL 
ojkol) which were thought to be shattered by collision, 
in the place of the atoms, is the less important, as 
Asclepiades, though he approached the Epicurean 
school, did not belong to it. 

§ 80. The Stoics, Boethus, Panoetius, Posidonius. 

Though the Stoic system was brought by Chryfl- 
ippus to a relative perfection, the Stoics were not so 



§80] STOICS^BOETHUS, PAN^TIUS. 277 

strictly isolated in the doctrine of their school that 
they did not allow some deviations from it. Some 
of these were due to the influence of older systems, 
others to the wish to meet the attacks of their oppo- 
nents, and, above all, the incisive criticism of Carneades. 
Zeno of Tarsus, the successor of Chrysippus, is said to 
have expressed himself doubtfully about the doctrine 
of the conflagration of the world, and also Diogenes in 
his latest years, perhaps because he could not solve 
the difficulties raised by Boethus and Pansetius. But 
these two pupils of Diogenes deviated far more widely 
from the old Stoic teaching. Boethus differed not 
only in his theory of knowledge, inasmuch as he 
described reason {vovs), science, and desire as criteria 
no less than perception, but he also regarded the Deity 
— which with his school he considered the same as the 
aether — to be divided in substance from the world. 
Consequently he would not allow the world to be an 
animated being ; he merely assumed a co-operation of 
the Deity with things. In connection with this middle 
position between Zeno and Aristotle he controverted 
at length the conflagration maintained by the first, 
in order to put the eternity of the world in its place. 

But the Stoic school of Pansetius of Khodes 
(approximately between 185 and 110 B.C.) had much 
greater influence. He was the successor of Antipater 
at Athens and at the same time the chief founder of 
the Eoman Stoicism, the friend of the younger Scipio 
Africanus and of Lselius, the teacher of Q. Muciug 
Scaevola, and L. ^lius Stilo, and other Eoman Stoics. 
Preserving the independence of his judgment in 



278 ECLECTICISM. [§ 80 

literary and historical criticism, Pansetius was a pro- 
nounced admirer of Plato and Aristotle. It was the 
more natural for him to allow their doctrines to have 
an influence on his own as he seems to have treated 
the Stoic philosophy from the practical side, and not 
merely in the severer form of the school. This is seen 
in his work on duties {iTSpl rod KadrjKovros)^ which was 
the pattern of the Ciceronian ' De Officiis.' With Boethus 
he coQtroverted the destruction and apparently also 
the origin of the world, denied the continuance of the 
soul after death, and distinguished in it, like Aristotle, 
the vegetable part {(fyuacs) from the animal {'yj^v-^i]). 
We cannot assume that in his ethics he contradicted 
the old Stoic doctrine, though he seems to have laid 
greater stress on the points in which it deviated from 
Cynicism and came into contact with Plato and 
Aristotle. On the other hand, he repeated Carneades' 
doubts about prophecy, and made a freer application 
than had hitherto been usual among the Stoics of the 
division of a triple theology (p. 255), though he was not, 
perhaps, the first to bring the division forward. 

Panaitius' most famous pupil was the learned Posi- 
donius of Apamea, who died in Rhodes about 50-46 
B.C., at eighty-four years of age, as the leader of a 
popular school. After him came Hecato, also a Rho- 
dian ; his successors in Athens were Mnesarchus and 
Dardanus (contemporaries), who were apparently 
followed by Apollodorus. It is only of Posidonius that 
we have any details. This important and influential 
Stoic retained the tradition of his school more strictly 
in many points than Panaetius. He defended the 



§80] STOICS— POSinONIUS, FTC. 279 

conflagration of the world, the continuance of the soul 
after death, the existence of demons, and took under 
his protection the Stoic belief in prophecy to its full 
extent. On the other hand, he shared Panaetius' 
admii'ation for Plato, and in order to give a psycho- 
logical foundation for the contests between reason 
and the passions, on which the Stoics laid such weight, 
he followed Plato (p. 154) in assigning the passions to 
courage and the desires, which were regarded not as 
separate parts of the soul, but as separate powers of 
it depending on the nature of the body — a devia- 
tion from the older Stoicism which is not without 
importance for the subsequent period. 

Many other Stoics are known to us from the first 
century B.C. Such was Dionysius, who lived in Athens 
about 50 B.C., perhaps as leader of the school ; Jason, 
the grandson and successor of Posidonius, the two 
Athenodori of Tarsus, of whom one, the son of 
Sandon, was the instructor of Augustus ; Greminus, the 
astronomer, a pupil of Posidonius ; Cato of Utica, the 
geographer Strabo (58 B.C. to 20 A.D.) and others. 
But of none of these have we any philosophical 
treatises, or larger fragments of such treatises than the 
fragments of Arius Didymus (p. 282). This last-men- 
tioned philosopher is a further example of the echo 
which the eclectic tendencies of the time found even in 
the Stoic school. 

§ 81. The Academicians of the Last Century B.C. 

Yet the chief seat of this eclecticism was the Aca- 
demic school. Even among the personal pupils of 



380 ECLECTICISM. [§81 

Cameades there were some like ]\Ietrodorus of Strato- 
nice, ^schines, and no doubt Charmidas, who aban- 
doned the proposition that things were absolutely 
unknowable. This was more definitely done by Philo 
of Larissa (who fled to Rome about 88 B.C., where he 
was the teacher of Cicero, and appears to have died 
about 80 B.C.), the pupil and successor of Clitomachus. 
He not merely made it the object of philosophy to 
point out the way to happiness to men, but he wished 
to attain this object by a detailed ethicaj theory, by con- 
troverting false moral conceptions and imparting correct 
ones (Stob. ' Eel.' ii. 40 ff.). Thus he could not con- 
sistently maintain a point of view which brings into ques- 
tion the truth of all our conceptions. Hence, although 
he joined Cameades in controverting the Stoic doctrine 
of the criterion, and regarded an absolutely certain 
knowledge, a conception of things, as impossible, yet he 
would not deny all power of knowledge, and maintained 
that even Arcesilaus and Cameades did not intend to 
deny it. There was an obviousness {svdp'y£ia\ which 
created a perfectly sure conviction, though it did not 
attain to the absolute certainty of the concept. Thus 
he sought for something intermediate between mere 
probability and knowledge. 

That such an intermediate position is untenable was 
recognised by Philo's disciple and successor, the friend 
of Lucullus, and also one of Cicero's teachers, Anti- 
ochus of Ascalon (died 68 B.C.), who finally quarrelled 
with Philo on this subject. By this Academician, who 
also attended the Stoic Mnesarchus, the Academy was 
definitely led from Scepticism to Eclecticism. Among 



§81] ACADEMICS. ANTIOCHUS, ETC. 281 

other objections to Scepticism, he, like the Stoics, 
indubitably thought it of great weight that without 
sure conviction no rational conduct of life is possibl-e. 
Nevertheless, he controverted it on scientific grounds, 
maintaining that without truth there was no proba- 
bility ; that it was a contradiction to maintain that 
nothing could be maintained and prove that nothing 
could be proved, &c. ; that it was impossible to speak of 
false presentations, if the distinction between true and 
false was denied, &c. But if we ask where is truth 
to be sought, Antiochus answers: In that upon 
which all important philosophers are agreed ; and in 
order to prove that there was really such agreement in 
all more important questions, he sets forth an exposi- 
tion of the Academic, Peripatetic, and Stoic systems, 
which was intended to show that these three schools 
differed from one another in subsidiary points and 
expressions rather than in essentials. In this, however, 
he was unable to succeed without much inaccuracy. 
His own interest lay chiefly in ethics. In these he 
sought a middle path between Zeno, Aristotle, and 
Plato ; as, for instance, when he said that virtue was in- 
deed sufficient for happiness, but for the highest degree 
of happiness bodily and external goods were requisite. 
It was made a reproach against him that he called 
himself an Academician, but was rather a Stoic. In 
truth he is neither, but an Eclectic. 

After the death of Antiochus, as is shown by Cicero 
(*Acad.' ii. 4, 11) and ^nesidemus (op. Phot. * Cod.' 
212, p. 170, 14), this mode of thought continued to pre- 
vail in the Academy. The head of the school down to 



282 ECLECTICISM. [§81 

51 B.C. was Aristus, the brother of Antiochus, who was 
followed apparently by Theomnestus. Ere long, how- 
ever, the preference for Pythagorean speculation (of. 
§ 92) was connected with it. Towards the end of the 
first century B.C. we find this preference in Eudorus, an 
Eclectic with the ethics of a Stoic, and somewhat later 
in Thrasyllus (died 36 A.D.). Arius Didymus, the 
tutor of Augustus, was counted a member of the Stoic 
school, but the existing portions of his work in which 
he gave a sketch of the more important philosophical 
systems, are composed so entirely after the manner of 
Antiochus that the Stoic and Academician are merely 
distinguished by name. 

The Alexandrian Potamo is also mentioned by 
Suidas {lioTa^wv) as a contemporary of Augustus, and 
rightly, in spite of Diog. ' Prooem.' 21. This philo- 
sopher called his school the Eclectic. What we have of 
his teaching, which was a superficial combination of 
the thoughts of others, reminds us chiefly of Antiochus. 

§ 82. The Peripatetic School, 

This Eclecticism was less prevalent among the con- 
temporaneous Peripatetics. Andronicus of Ehodes, who 
about 65-50 B.C. was at the head of the Peripatetic 
school at Athens, with the aid of the grammarian 
Tyrannio, published an edition of the works of Ari- 
stotle. He also made researches into their genuineness, 
and wrote commentaries on some. These publications 
gave the impulse to that earnest study of Aristotle, to 
which the Peripatetic school was henceforth dedicated. 



§ 82] PERIPATETICS. 283 

It was a necessary result of this occupation with the 

writings of their founder that views which were not his 
could not easily be ascribed to him. Yet neither Andro- 
nicus nor his disciple Boethus of Sidon (who, by contro- 
verting immortality and in other points, represents a 
naturalistic view of the Peripatetic doctiine) surrendered 
his own judgment in favour of Aristotle. In the same 
manner Xenarchus (under Augustus) controverted the 
Aristotelian doctrine of the aether. Staseas of Naples 
(first third of the first century B.C.), Aristo, and Crat- 
ippus, who passed from the school of Antiochus to the 
Peripatetic, Nicolaus of Damascus (born about 64 B.C.), 
and others, are not more particularly known to us as 
philosophers. Who the Peripatetic was, who (about 
50 B.C.) defended the eternity of the world in a 
treatise which has come down to us in Philo's name 
with Judaising additions, we do not know. 

That even in the Peripatetic school there were 
some who were prepared to adopt alien elements into 
the doctrines of Aristotle, is shown by two treatises in 
our Aristotelian collection — the book ' De Mundo,' and 
the small tractate on ' Virtues and Vices.' The latter 
is nearer the Platonic doctrine of virtue than the Ari- 
stotelian, but it nevertheless appears to be the work of a 
Peripatetic. The book ' De Mundo ' is from the hand of 
a Peripatetic who, in any case, wrote after Posidonius, 
whose meteorology he has freely used. The work chiefly 
aims at a combination of the Aristotelian theism with the 
Stoic pantheism by the assumption that G-od is indeed 
in his essence outside the world, and far too sublime 
to occupy himself with it in detail, but, on the other 



284 ECLECTICISM. [§ 82 

hand, he fills the whole with his power and operation, 
and to this extent the predicates, which the Stoics are 
accustomed to ascribe to him, are essentially his. In 
this Plato, Heracleitus, and Orpheus agree. 



§ 83. Cicero, Varro. The Sextiana, 

The eclecticism of the last century B.C. is expressed 
in a peculiar manner among the Eoman philosophers 
of this period, of whom M. Tullius Cicero is the most 
distinguished name in history (106-43 B.C.) He does 
not owe his prominent position to the acuteness and 
independence of his own thought, but simply to the 
skill with which he could set forth the doctrines of the 
Grreeks — superficial as his acquaintance with them was 
— in a clear and intelligent manner for the contemporary 
and succeeding generation of Latin readers. Cicero con- 
siders himself one of the New Academicians, and gladly 
follows the school in the habit of discussing both sides 
of a question without any final decision. But the chief 
motive of his doubt lies less in the scientific grounds 
which he borrows from the Academicians, than in the 
conflict of philosophical authorities ; and to the degree 
that this difficulty can be removed, he is from the first 
inclined to abandon an attitude of doubt. If, therefore, 
he believes that he must despair of knowledge in the 
complete sense, probability attains for him a higher 
importance than fer Carneades ; and on the points 
which have most interest for him, moral principles and 
the theological and anthropological questions con- 
nected therewith, he speaks with great decision. He 



§83] CICERO, VARRO. 286 

xS convinced tliat correct conceptions on these points 
have been implanted in us by nature ; that they can 
be immediately derived from our own consciousness 
and confirmed by universal agreement. The views 
which he acquires on this foundation are neither 
original nor free from variation. However decisively 
he opposes Epicureanism in his ethics, yet he fails 
to find a sound footing between the Stoic and the 
Academic-Peripatetic doctrines ; and while he delights 
himself with the sublimity of the Stoic principles, he 
cannot accept the narrow, one-sided views inseparable 
from them. In theology, he is serious in maintaining 
the existence and providence of God ; in psychology, 
the immortality of the soul and the freedom of the 
will ; yet he does not venture to pronounce decisively 
on the nature of Grod and our spirit ; and if in general 
he places himself on the side of the Platonic spiritual- 
ism, he cannot always withdraw himself from the 
influence of the Stoic materialism. He stands in no 
intimate relation to the national religion as such, yet 
in the interest of the community he wishes to retain 
it, while removing all superstition as far as possible. 

Closely connected with Cicero is his friend M. 
Terentius Varro (116-27 b.c»), who, however, was far 
more of a scholar than a philosopher. A disciple of An- 
tiochus, whom he has to represent in Cicero (' Acad. 
Post.'), he follows his lead in ethics (ap. Aug. 'Civ. 
Dei,' xix. 1-3), which he considers the most im- 
portant part of philosophy; but, like him, he often 
approaches the Stoics and even the Stoic materialism. 
In his theology be adheres still more closely to the 



286 "ECLECTICISM. [§8S 

Stoics, especially to Panaetius, in describicg the Deity 
as the soul of the universe, and worshipping under the 
gods of polytheism the powers of this soul which 
operate in various parts of the world. On the other 
hand, he adopts the division of a triple theology (p. 266\ 
and the sharp polemic against the mythology of the 
poets. He even publicly disapproved of important 
parts of the common religion. 

An offshoot from the Stoa meets us in the school 
which was founded about 40 B.C. by Q. Sextius, a 
Roman of good family, and subsequently conducted by 
his son, after whom it soon became extinct. A mem- 
ber of this school was Sotion of Alexandria, who about 
18-20 A.D. was the teacher of Seneca, Cornelius 
Celsus, Fabianus Papirius, and L. Crassitius. So far as 
we know these men, we find them to be moral philo- 
sophers who expressly represent the Stoic principles, 
but they owe the impression which they made rather 
to the weight of their own personality than to any 
eminent scientific qualifications. In Sotion we find 
Pythagorean elements in combination with Stoic. He 
based the abstinence from animal food, which his 
master had recommended on general grounds, on the 
doctrine of the migration of souls. If the Sextians 
explained the soul as incorporeal, they must have been 
influenced to some degree by Plato. 

§ 84. The First Centuries A.D. The Stoic School. 

The mode of thought which had prevailed in the 
last century B.C. amoug the majority of philosophers, 
with the exception of the Epicureans, was retained 



§84] LATER STOICS. 287 

during the centuries immediately succeeding. But 
more and more there was connected with it a pre- 
ference for those theological speculations, which finally 
ended in Neo-Platonism. The separation of the schools 
not only continued ; it was confirmed by the vigorous 
study of Aristotelian and Platonic writings, and re- 
ceived an official recognition when Marcus Aurelius 
(176 A.D.) established endowed chairs at Athens for the 
four leading schools (two, as it seems, for each). But 
that the same importance was no longer attached to 
their contrasts as before, is shown directly in the com- 
bination of various doctrines which we frequently 
meet with, and more especially in the wide-spread in- 
clination to return to the practical results of philo- 
sophy upon which men would most easily agree, 
though diifering in their scientific views. 

Of the numerous Stoics of imperial times whoso 
names are known to us, the following may be men- 
tioned here : — Heracleitus, the author of the Homeric 
Allegories, which are still in existence, and who was 
apparently a contemporary of Augustus ; Attalus, the 
teacher of Seneca; Chseremon, an Egyptian priest, 
the tutor of Nero; Seneca (see infra) and his con- 
temporaries, L. Annseus Cornutus of Leptis (from 
whom we have a treatise on the gods), A. Persius 
Flaccus, and M. Annaeus Lucanus, the nephew of 
Seneca (39-65 a.d.); Musonius Eufus, and his dis- 
ciple Epictetus (see infra) ; Euphrates (celebrated by 
his disciple Pliny the younger), who took poison when 
he had reached a great age, 118 a.d. ; Cleomedes, the 
author of an astronomical handbook, under Hadrian or 



288 ECLECTICISM. [§ 84 

Antoninus Pius ; and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius 
Antoninus. But among these, so far as we know, only 
Seneca, Musonius, Epictetus, and Marcus exhibit re- 
markable qualities, while Heracleitus, Cornutus, and 
Cleomedes merely continued the tradition of their 
school. 

L. Annseus Seneca (born at Corduba soon after the 
beginning of our era, the tutor of Nero, and for a 
long time his adviser, with Burrhus, till he put himself 
to death at the emperor's command, 65 A.D.) did not 
oppose the doctrine of his school in any important 
point. Yet if we compare his philosophy with the old 
Stoic, an altered spirit breathes through it. In the 
first place, he confines himself essentially to morals. 
He is acquainted with the Stoic logic, but has no in- 
clination to occupy himself with it in detail. He 
extols the sublimity of the Physics, and in his 
Naturales Qucestiones he adopts the meteorology of 
Posidonius, but in this department it is only such 
theological or anthropological determinations as can 
be realised in practice which have a deeper interest 
for him. Without contradicting the Stoic materialism 
and pantheism, he takes an especial delight in bring- 
ing forward the ethical traits of the Stoic idea of God, 
on which rests the belief in providence. In anthropo- 
logy also he gives attention to the kinship of the 
human spirit with God, and the life after death. Yet 
his moral teaching is not exactly coincident with the 
old Stoic, whose principles and rules of life he repeats. 
Seneca is too deeply penetrated with the weakness and 
einfulness of men, in his Lively descriptions of which 



§ 84] SENECA, 289 

he often strikingly resembles the apostle Paul, to be 

able to meet moral requirements with the self-con- 
fidence of the original Stoicism. As he despairs of 
finding a wise man in this world or becoming wise 
himself, he is inclined to lower his demands to the 
level of men. Earnestly as he demands that by moral 
labour we should make ourselves independent of all 
externals, and zealous as are his praises of this inde- 
pendence, he nevertheless frequently ascribes a greater 
value to external goods and evils than was permitted 
to the stricter Stoics. If he lays decisive weight on 
the natural connection of men in the manner of his 
school, yet each individual state, as compared with the 
great state of humanity and the world, seems to him 
less worthy of the notice of the wise man than was 
the case with the older Stoics. In his cosmopolitanism, 
the softer traits, sympathy and compassion, are more 
strongly marked than with them. Lastly, the reflex 
effect of his morals on his anthropology and his theo- 
logy is remarkable. The more painfully that he feels 
the power of sensuality and the passions, the more do 
we find him, in spite of his materialism, strongly accen- 
tuating the opposition of body and soul. In many 
passages he expresses a yearning for freedom from the 
bonds of the body, and praises death as the beginning 
of true life in a manner which is more Platonic than 
Stoic. For the same reason he distinguishes with 
Posidonius ("and Plato) a rational and two irrational 
parts in the soul itself (the principale, yysfjLovt/cov). 
The higher the value that he ascribes in the oattle 
between reason and sensuality to the thought that this 



2J)0 ECLECTICISM, [§ 84 

reason is the divine element in man, its law the will of 
the deity, the more distinctly must he distinguish the 
Deity also, as the operative power, from the inert 
matter. That the Deity receives his true worship only 
through purity of life and knowledge of Grod, not by 
sacrifices, only in the sanctuary of the breast, not in 
temples, is expressly stated by Seneca, who also, as a 
worthy representative of Eoman Stoicism, attacks in 
the most relentless manner the improprieties of my- 
thology and the superstition of the existing worship 
(p. 254). 

Musonius Eufus of Volsinii occupied himself even 
more distinctly with morals — a Stoic who enjoyed great 
respect as a teacher of philosophy at Rome under Nero 
and the Flavii. Numerous fragments remain of his 
lectures, which were preserved by Pollio. According to 
Musonius, virtue is the only object of philosophy : men 
are moral invalids ; the philosopher is the physician 
who is to heal them. Virtue is far more a matter of 
practice and education than of teaching ; the disposi- 
tion to it is born in us and can easily be developed into 
conviction ; the chief matter is the application of this 
conviction. Hence the philosopher requires few scien- 
tific propositions. He ought to show us what is in 
our power and what is not. But the application of our 
notions is in our power, and nothing else. On this alone, 
then, rest our virtue and happiness ; everything else is 
something indifferent, to which we must surrender 
ourselves unconditionally. In the application of these 
principles to life we meet with a moral teaching which 
is pure, and in some pcnnts inclining to Stoic sim- 



§84] MtlSONlVS, MPICTETVS. 2dl 

plicity, humane, and gentle even to offenders. But 
powerful as the effect of the lectures of Musonius was 
upon his audience, they do not seem to have contained 
anything new in regard to science. 

The pupil of Musonius was Epictetus of Hierapolis, 
who lived at Eome (partly under Nero), first as a slave, 
then as a freedman, and went to Nicopolis in Epirus 
in 94 A.D., when Domitian expelled all the philosophers 
from Rome. Here he was attended by Flavins Arria- 
nus, who drew up a sketch of the contents of his 
lectures. Like his teacher, he sees the object of 
philosophy simply in education to virtue, in healing 
moral vices. If in general he presupposes the Stoic 
system as the basis for this, yet he not only ascribes 
little value to dialectical investigations, but even in 
physics there are but few points which he re- 
quires to establish his moral rules. Such are the 
belief in the Deity and his care for men; in the 
rationality of the universe and its course ; in the kin- 
ship of the divine and human spirit, which spirit, in 
spite of his materialism, he, like Seneca, opposes 
almost in a dualistic manner to the body, though he 
does not maintain its personal continuance after death. 
His moral teaching can dispense the more easily with 
a great systematic apparatus, as he believes with 
Musonius that the general principles of morality are 
implanted in us by nature. Only one thing, he says 
with Musonius, is in our power, our will — the use of 
our notions. On this alone, according to Epictetus, 
rests our happiness; everything else he treats as so 



202 tlCtncTtCISM. t§ ^ 

indifferent that the distinction between what is to be 
desired and rejected has scarcely any importance for him. 
If in this respect he approaches Cynicism, he agrees 
with it entirely in his views of marriage and civic life? 
and depicts the true philosopher as a Cynic. On the 
other hand, he inculcates not merely an unconditional 
surrender to the course of the world, but also the most 
comprehensive and unlimited philanthropy ; and he 
establishes this more particularly by reference to the 
Deity and the equal relation in which all men stand 
to him. In general his philosophy has a religious 
character. The philosopher is a servant and mes- 
senger of the Deity ; and though he takes up a free 
position towards the national religion, he is rather an 
earnest preacher of morality full of pious enthusiasm 
than a systematic philosopher. 

The noble Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born 121 
A.D., associated in the government 138, Caesar 161, died 
180), agrees with Epicurus, whose admirer he was, in 
his general view of Stoicism, in his disinclination to all 
theoretic inquiries, in his religious view of things, and 
in absorption in his own self-consciousness. The 
belief in the divine providence, whose regard for men 
is shown not only in the whole direction of the world, 
but also in extraordinary revelations, inclines him to 
be content with all that the order of nature brings 
with it and that the gods ordain. Insight iuto the 
change of all things, and the decay of the individual, 
teaches him to desire nothing external as a good and 
fear nothing as an evil. In his conviction of the divine 
origin and nature of the human spirit, he finds the 



§84) MARCUS AURELWS, 293 

demand that he shall worship the spirit in his own 
heart only and seek his happiness from him. In the 
recognition of the sameness of human nature in all 
men he finds the impulse to the most boundless and 
unselfish philanthropy. WTiat distinguishes Marcus 
Aurelius from Epictetus is not only the difference in 
his view of political activity, which arose from his 
position, but more especially the fact that the reflex 
action of ethical dualism on anthropology and meta- 
physics, which was noticeable in Posidonius and Seneca 
(pp. 279, 289), is more strongly marked in Aurelius. 
If he allows the soul to return to the Deity some time 
after death, yet he is rather a Platonist than an Old-Stoic 
when he distinguishes the spirit {yovs) or the 7)^z)xovik6v 
as the active and divine principle, not merely from the 
body, but also from the soul, or Pneuma, and says of 
Grod that he beholds the spirits free from their cor- 
poreal veils, inasmuch as his reason is in direct contact 
with their effluences. Here we see Stoic materialism 
about to pass into Platonic dualism. 

§ 85. The Later Cynics. 

We must regard as a more one-sided form of this 
Stoic moral philosophy the Cynicism which makes its 
appearance soon after the beginning of our era. The 
more that the scientific elements of the Stoic philosophy 
were thrown into the background as compared with 
practical requirements, the nearer did it approach to 
the Cynicism from which it arose. The more melan- 
choly the moral and political conditions which followed 



294 ECLECTICISM. [§ 85 

the last century of tlie Eoman Eepublic, tlie more 
necessary did it appear to meet the corruption and 
distress of the time in the strange but yet effectual 
manner of the ancient Cynics. Varro in his Menip- 
pean Satires had already conjured up their shades in 
order to tell the truth to his contemporaries in the 
coarsest language. The letters of Diogenes ^ appear 
intended to support a real renewal of the Cynic school. 
But it is in Seneca, who greatly extols Demetrius among 
the Cynics of his time, that we can first definitely prove 
it. Among those who came after, the most prominent 
were : (Enomaus of Gadara, under Hadrian ; De- 
monax, who died, nearly one hundred years old, in 
Athens about 1 60 a.d. ; Peregrinus, later called Proteus, 
who publicly burnt himself in 165 in Olympia, and his 
disciple Theagenes. But this school, though re; nark- 
able in the history of culture, has only an indirect 
importance for the history of science, as the expression 
of widespread views. Even in the best of its repre- 
sentatives, Cynicism was not free from many excesses, 
and it often served as a pretext for a vagabond, dirty 
life, for immoral conduct, and a gratification of vanity 
by ostentatious display intended to excite attention. 
Hardly any of these later Cynics struck out new 
thoughts. Demetrius, and even Peregrinus in spite 
of his eccentricities, express the moral priaciples which 
through the Stoics had long become common property. 
Demonax, an Eclectic-Socratic in his philosophy, en- 



* Marckg, Synib. Crit. ad Epi- probability in the time of h^ 
stologr. Grose. 12 f., places the gustus. 
date of their origin with great 



§85J LATER CYNICS. 295 

joyed general respect owing to Ms gentle, affectionate, 
and huniane character. CEnomaus, in the fragments 
of his treatise ' against the jugglers ' (yorjrcov (f)(t>pd\ 
makes a severe attack on the oracles, and in con- 
nection therewith defends the freedom of the will 
against the Stoics. But none of these men are known 
by any scientific service. It is for the very reason 
that we have here to deal with a mode of Hfe rather 
than scientific views that this later Cynicism is so 
little influenced by the change of philosophical sys- 
tems. Outliving all the schools except the Neo- 
Platonists, it continued into the fifth century and 
could count adherents even in the beginning of the 
sixth. 

§ 86. The Peripatetio School in the Christian 
Period. 

The Peripatetic school was inclined towards a 
general amalgamation with the Neo-Platonic in the 
direction which had been struck out by Andronicus. 
We have only fragments of its history in this period. 
The most memorable among the adherents with whose 
names we are acquainted are the following : about 50 
A.D. Alexander of Mgad, a teacher of Nero ; and about 
the same time, apparently, Sotion, and perhaps Achaecus 
also; under Hadrian, Aspasius and Adrastus, one of 
the most distinguished Peripatetics; about 150-180, 
Herminus ; about 180, Aristocles of Messene and 
Sosigenes, an excellent mathematician ; about 200, 
Alexander of Aphrodisias. The activity of these men 
seems to have consisted almost exclusively in the 



296 ECLECTICISM. [§ 86 

exposition of the Aristotelian writings and the defence 
of the Aristotelian doctrine. What is occasionally 
remarked of them rarely shows any considerable de- 
viation from the views of Aristotle. But that the 
Peripatetics, even in this later period, did not entirely 
exclude views which were originally strange to their 
school, is shown by the example of Aristocles. If this 
distinguished Peripatetic assumed that the divine 
spirit iyovs) inhabited the entire corporeal world, and 
operated in it, and that it became an individual human 
spirit wherever it found an organism adapted to receive 
it, yet he treated the Deity, after the Stoic manner, 
as the soul of the world, which was also the view taken 
by the Peripatetics, according to his contemporary 
Athenagoras {' Supplic' c. 5). This approximation to 
the Stoic pantheism was not shared by the disciple of 
Aristocles, Alexander of Aphrodisias, the famous ' Com- 
mentator.' But well as he was acquainted with Ari- 
stotle's doctrine and successfully as he defended it, he 
deviates in important points from too naturalistic a view 
of its determinations. He not only follows Aristotle in 
regarding the individual being as something substan- 
tial, but he also adds — thereby differing from Aristotle 
— that the individual was earlier, in itself (^ucrgt), than 
the universal, and that general concepts exist as such 
in our minds only, their real object being individual 
things. Moreover, in mankind he brings the higher 
part of the soul nearer to the lower, by separating the 
' active vovs ' from the human soul, and explaining it 
by the divine spirit working upon the soul. Thus 
men only bring a capacity for thought into life (a 



§«6J PERIPATETICS IN THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 297 

potential vovs\ and it is only in the progress of life 
that this, under the operation described, becomes 
' acquired vovs,^ In connection with this theory he 
absolutely denies, like Aristotle, the immortality of the 
soul. Finally, he refers providence entirely to nature 
{(^v(TLs) or to the power which spreads from the upper 
spheres to the lower, and from this mode of activity 
he excludes any regard for the good of man. After 
Alexander we do not know of any important teacher of 
the Peripatetic philosophy as such : the chief seat of 
Aristotelian studies, even before the end of the third 
century, is the Neo- Platonic school, and even if in- 
dividuals like Themistius (§ 101) preferred to be 
called Peripatetics rather than Platonists, they were in 
part merely exponents of Aristotle and in part Eclectics. 

§ 87. The Platonists of the First Century a.d. 

The chief support of Eclecticism continued to be 
the Platonic school. The most remarkable members 
in the first two centuries of our era are : Ammonius, 
an Egyptian, who taught in Athens about 60-70 A.D. ; 
his pupil Plutarch of Chaeronea, the well-known philo- 
sopher and biographer, whose life appears to fall 
approximately between 48 and 125 A.D. ; Gaius, Cal- 
visius Taurus (a pupil of Plutarch), Theo of Smyrna, 
who taught under Hadrian and Antoninus Pius ; 
Albinus, the pupil of Gaius, who was attended by 
Galen in Smyrna about 152, and his contemporaries 
Nigrinus, Maximus of Tyre, and Apuleius of Madaura ; 
Atticus, who, like Numeniue, Cronius, the well-known 



298 ECLECTICISM. [§ 87 

opponent of Christianity, Celsus, and no doubt Severua 
also, belongs to the reign of Marcus Aurelius. About 
the time of this emperor lived also Harpocration, the 
pupil of Atticus. Part of these Platonists at any rate 
would not hear of the displacing of the genuine 
Platonism by foreign elements. This aversion must 
have been supported by the circumstance that even 
the Academicians after Plutarch, and no doubt earlier 
also, followed the pattern of the Peripatetics in devot- 
ing special attention to the writings of their founder 
(cf. p. 14). Thus Taurus not only wrote against the 
Stoics, but also on the difference of the Platonic and 
Aristotelian doctrines ; and Atticus was a passionate 
opponent of Aristotle. Yet the first denied the origin 
of the world in time, and if the second contradicted 
Aristotle in this as in other respects, yet he approached 
the Stoics in his assertions about the sufficiency of virtue, 
and his one-sided practical conception of philosophy. 
The majority of the Academicians continued to follow 
the eclectic direction given by Antiochus. But this 
was accompanied more and more by those Neo-Pytha- 
gorean speculations which meet us in Plutarch, Max- 
imus, Apuleius, Numenius, Celsus, and others (§ 92). 
Besides those mentioned, Albinus is also evidence for 
the Eclecticism of the school, whose sketch of the 
Platonic doctrine ^ presents a marvellous mixture of 
Platonic, Peripatetic, and Stoic theories. Here Albinus 
followed his teacher Gains. In the same path we meet 



' Preserved for us in a revised that it belons:s to Albinus, HeU 
excerpt under the name of ' Alci- letiist. Stud. 3. H. 
nous.' Freudenthal has shown 



§87] PLATONISTS OF THE FIRST CENTURY. 299 

Severus also, so far as we know him, and thus the 
preponderance of this mode of thought in the school 
cannot be doubted. 

§ 88. Dio, Lucian, and Galen. 

Dio, Lucian, and Gralen did not consider themselves 
members of any special school, but all three wished to 
pass for philosophers. We shall allow the term most 
readily to Galen. Dio, surnamed Chrysostom, the 
Bithynian rhetorician, who was banished from Kome 
by Domitian and protected by Trajan, put on the 
cynic garb after his banishment ; but his ' philosophy ' 
does not go beyond a popular morality which, though in 
its contents meritorious, is without scientific character. 
It adheres chiefly to Stoic doctrines and principles. 
Lucian of Samosata, a rhetorician like Dio — his fruitful 
career as a writer coincides approximately with the 
second half of the second century — is the opponent of 
all school philosophy, and attacks the Cynics especially 
with his satire. What he calls philosophy is a collec- 
tion of moral precepts, to which he is the more inclined 
to confine himself as he considers theoretic questions to 
be insoluble. Claudius Gralenus of Pergamum (131-201 
A.D.), the famous physician, occupied himself far more 
seriously with philosophy. He devoted numerous 
treatises to the subject, of which the greater part are lost. 
An opponent of Epicurus and of Scepticism, and making 
Aristotle his favourite, though not altogether satisfied 
with him, he combines with the Peripatetic doctrine 
much that is Stoic and something that is Platonic. 
Besides the senses, the trustworthiness of which Galen 



300 ECLECTICISM. [§ 88 

undertakes to defend, a second source of knowledge is 
recognised in the truths which are immediately certain 
to the intelligence. The adaptation of means to 
ends in the world is strongly maintained, but G-alen 
ascribes little value to deeper speculative questions, 
though his expressions are not always consistent. Such 
speculations are not of much importance for life and 
action. His Ethics, also so far as we know them, con- 
tain only older theories borrowed from various schools. 

II. The Later Sceptics. 

§ 89. ^nesidemus and his School, 

Though the Eclecticism of Antiochus succeeded in 
driving Scepticism from the Academy, its chief abode, 
the victory was not final. As Eclecticism had arisen 
out of the fact that the attacks of the Sceptics had 
destroyed confidence in philosophical systems, this 
mistrust of all dogmatic convictions continued to be 
its presupposition, and it was inevitable that it should 
again take the form of a sceptical theory. Yet this later 
scepticism was long in attaining the influence and 
extent which has been enjoyed by the Scepticism of 
the Academy. 

This last school of Greek Sceptics (which called 
itself an aycoyrj not a aipea-is) wished to be considered 
a descendant of the Pyrrhonists, not of the Academi- 
cians. When the Pyrrhonists became extinct in the 
third century, the school was revived, as we are told, 
by PtolemcTeus of Gyrene ; his pupils were Sarpedon 
and Heracleides. The pupil of Heracleides was ^^ne- 



§89] j^NJSSIDEMVS, 301 

sidemus, a native of Cnossus, who taught in Alexandria. 
But as these new Pyrrhonists laboured in vain to 
point out any serious difference between their doctrine 
and that of the New Academy, the influence of the 
latter on ^uesidemus and his successors is undeniable. 
What was the relation of Ptolemseus and Sarpedon to 
the Academy we do not know, or whether they set forth 
their theory on the same general terms as ^nesi- 
demus. Aristocles (cf. Eus. 'Prsep. Ev.' xiv. 18, 22) 
calls ^nesidemus the reviver of the Pyrrhonian Scepti- 
cism. Besides the Academic and Pyrrhonian doctrine 
the school of the * empiric ' physicians was also doubt- 
less a sharer in it, to which several of the leaders of the 
new Pyrrhonists belonged. If this school desired to 
limit itself to the empiric knowledge of the operation 
of cures, and held the inquiry into the causes of sickness 
to be aimless, this principle had only to be generalised 
to end in universal scepticism. 

If the list of the sceptical diadochi in Diog. ix. 116 
is complete, ^nesidemus can hardly have come forward 
before the beginning of the Christian era. If, on the 
other hand, the L. Tubero, to whom, according to 
Photius, ' Cod.' 212, p. 169, 31, his ' Pyrrhonic speeches ' 
are dedicated, is regarded as the youthful friend of 
Cicero — who, however, denies the existence of a 
Pyrrhonic school in his time — we must carry him half 
a century back. 

^nesidemus agrees in all that is essential with 
Pyrrho. As we can know nothing of the real nature 
of things, and equally good grounds can be brought 
forward against every assumption, we ought not to 



302 I^CtUCftCtSM. tMd 

maintain anything, not even our own experience. By 
this means we acquire the true pleasure, the repose of 
spirit {arapa^la). So far as we are compelled to act, 
we must partly follow custom and partly our own 
feelings and needs. These principles ^nesidemus 
sought to establish by a detailed criticism of prevailing 
opinions and views in his livppcovsioL \6yot,, in which, 
among other matters, he controverts at length the 
conclusion of the causes of things. His main grounds 
of proof are collected on the ten * Pyrrhonean tropes,' 
which all unite in the aim of setting forth the rela- 
tivity of all our presentations of things, but carry out 
this thought almost exclusively in regard to sensuous 
perceptions. If Sextus Empiricus and Tertullian, 
apparently on the same authority, mention that 
.-Enesidemus wished his scepticism merely to serve as 
a preparation for the Heracleitean physics, this is 
beyond doubt a mistake, which arose from the fact that 
the statements of ^nesidemus about Heracleitus were 
confounded with his own point of view. 

Of the eight successors of ^nesidemus in the leader- 
ship of the school whose names have come down to us 
— Zeuxippus, Zeuxis, Antiochus, Menodotus, Theodas, 
Herodotus, Sextus, Saturn inus — Sextus only is further 
known. On the other hand, we hear that Agrippa re- 
duced the ten tropes of ^nesidemus to five —we do not 
know when — and these five in turn are reducible to 
three chief points: the contradiction of opinions; the 
relativity of perceptions ; and the impossibility of a 
demonstration which does not move in a circle, or 
proceed from presuppositions which are not proved. 



§ 89] SlMPLICim. SOS 

others went yet further in simplification, and were 
contented with two tropes : men could not know any- 
thing from themselves, as is proved by the contradiction 
of opinions, nor from others, for they must first get their 
knowledge from themselves. How much scepticism 
from this time forth was concerned with an exhaustive 
contradiction of dogmatism is shown by the writings 
of Sextus, who as an empiric physician (p. 301), was 
known as Empiricus, and appears to have been a 
younger contemporary of Gralen, so that he falls in 
the period about 180-210 a.d. 

We possess three treatises by Simplicius, of which 
the second and third are usually comprehended under 
the unsuitable title * Adversus Mathematicos.' These 
treatises are the Pyrrhonic Hypotyposes, the tractate 
against the dogmatic philosophers ('Adv. Math.' 
vii.-xi.) and that against the [xaOrj^ara^ grammar, 
rhetoric, mathematics ('Adv. Math.' i.-vi.). There is 
no doubt that Sextus borrowed by far the greatest part 
of the materials of his work partly from older members 
of his school, and partly after their pattern from the 
Academicians, more especially from Carneades (Clito- 
rnachus). The latest name mentioned in his main 
work (' Math.' vii.-xi.) is that of ^nesidemus. Hence 
his discussions can be considered as a combination of all 
that was usually brought forward in his school to defend 
their point of view. In his discussions on the criterion, 
truth, demonstration, and the marks of proof, &c., he 
controverts, often with wearisome discursiveness and, 
for reasons of different value, the formal possibility of 
knowledge. He attacks the concept of the cause in 



804 ECLECTICISM, [§ 89 

every possible application ; but it is just the question of 
the origin of this concept which, like his predecessors, 
he leaves out of sight. He repeats Carneades' criticism 
of the Stoic theology, applying it to meet the notions 
of the operative cause. He also finds the material 
cause, or bodies, inconceivable in every respect. He 
criticises the ethical assumptions, repeating that of 
the good and happiness in order to show that know- 
ledge is unattainable on this ground. Finally, from 
these and other considerations he draws the conclusions 
w^hich had long been acknowledged, that owing to the 
balance of the pros and cons (the lo-oadhsia row 
\6ycov), we must forego all decision and renounce all 
knowledge, and by this means only can we attain to 
repose and happiness, which it is the aim of all philosophy 
to acquire. This, however, is not to prevent us from 
allowing ourselves to be led in our actions, not only by 
perceptions, our natural impulses, law, and custom, but 
also by experience. Experience instructs us in the 
ordinary course of things, and puts us in a position to 
form certain regulations for life. 

The scepticism of ^nesidemus spread but little 
beyond the limits of his school, the last successor in 
which (Saturninus) must have belonged to the first 
quarter of the third century. The only other 
sharer in his opinions that we can prove is the 
rhetorician and historian Favorinus of Arelate, whose 
life may be placed approximately in 80-150 a.d. But 
as an indication of scientific feeling, this mode of 
thought has a more general importance, and we can- 
not fail to recognise how much it aided from the 



§ 89] AlXESIDEMUS and his school. 305 

beginning in developing the eclecticism of tlie time 
into Neo-Pythagorean and Neo-Pl atonic speculation, 

m. The Peecursors of Neo-Platonism. 

§ 90. Introduction. 

In a period in which much greater weight was laid 
on the practical effect of philosophy than on scientific 
knowledge as such — in which a deep mistrust of man's 
capacity of knowledge widely prevailed, and there was 
a general inclination to accept truth, when found, on 
the basis of practical necessity, and a direct convic- 
tion of it, even at the cost of scientific consistency — 
in such a period only a slight impulse was needed in 
order to lead the spirit in its search for truth beyond the 
limits of natural knowledge to a supposed higher foun- 
tain. This impulse Grreek thought appears to have 
received through that contact with Oriental views, of 
which Alexandria was the centre. The main part on 
the Oriental side was played by Judaism, the ethical 
monotheism of which offered far more points of contact 
to Hellenic philosophy than the mythology of the 
national religions. According to all appearance it was at 
Alexandria that the speculation first came forward, which, 
after centuries of slow development, finally ended in 
Neo-Platonism. The last motive in this speculation was 
the yearning after a higher revelation of the truth ; its 
metaphysical presupposition was an opposition of Grod 
and the world, of spirit and matter, as intermediaries 
between which men took refuge in demons and divine 



806 PRECURSORS OF NEO-PLATONISM. [§90 

power. Its practical consequence was a combination 
of ethics with religion, which led partly to asceticism 
and partly to the demand for a direct intuition of the 
Deity. It has already been observed (p. 32) that its 
development took place partly on Grreek and partly on 
Judaic-Hellenistic soil. 



I. THE PURELY GREEK SCHOOLS. 

§ 91. The Neo-PythagoreaTis. 

Though the Pythagorean philosophy as such be- 
came extinct in the course of the fourth century, or 
amalgamated with the Platonic, Pythagoreanism still 
continued as a form of religious life, and that the Pyth- 
agorean mysteries spread widely is proved by other evi- 
dence, and more especially by the fragments of the poets 
of the middle comedy. It was about the beginning of 
the first century B.C., and apparently at Alexandria, 
that the attempt was made to give a new life to the 
Pythagorean science, now extended and enriched by 
later doctrines. The earliest demonstrable evidence 
for these efforts is to be found in the interpolated 
Pythagorean treatises : the semi-Stoic exposition of the 
Pythagorean doctrines, of which Alexander Polyhistor 
(about 70 B.C.) gives us an account in Diog. viii. 24 f.; 
the treatise of the so-called Lucanus Ocellus on the 
universe, which was known to Varro, and the preambles 
to the laws of Zaleucus and Charondas quoted by 
Cicero (' Legg.' ii. G, 1 4). In the later pf^riod a mass 
of such supposed old Pythagorean, but really Neo- 
Pythagorean treatises, is mentioned (about ninety, by 



§91J THE NEO-PYTHAOOBEANS. .SO? 

more than fifty authors), and many fragments of them 
have come down to us, among which those of Archytas 
are pre-eminent in number and importance. The first 
adherent of the Neo -Pythagorean school whose name 
we know is the friend of Cicero, the learned P. Nigi- 
dius Figulus (died 45 B.C.), who was joined by P. 
Vatinius. The school of the Sextii (p. 286) also stood in 
connection with the new Pythagoreans ; definite traces 
of their existence and their doctrines are found up to 
the time of Augustus in Arius Didymus and Eudorus 
and in King Juba II.'s predilection for Pythagorean 
writings. In the second half of the first century a.d. 
we find Moderatus of Grades and Apollonius of Tyana, 
Both were writers in their cause, and Apollonius 
traversed the Roman world in the part, or at any rate 
with the reputation, of a wizard. Under Hadrian 
Nicomachus of Gerasa composed the work of which we 
possess parts ; Numenius (§ 92) appears to have lived 
under the Anton ines, and Philostratus belonged to the 
first third of the third century (p. 310). 

In the doctrines by which these new Pythagoreans 
sought to establish the moral and religious principles 
of their sect, we find connected with the old Pythagorean 
views and the Platonic intuitions, which were still more 
important in this school, something borrowed from the 
Peripatetics and Stoics. This philosophy thus bears 
an eclectic character, like that of the contemporary 
Academicians, and within the common tendency we 
find many deviations in details. Unity and quality 
{hvas cLopLdTos) are declared to be the final bases. The 
first is regarded as the form, the second as the matter. 



308 PRECURSORS OF NEO'PZATOmSM. [§91 

But while a part of the Pythagoreans explained unity 
to be the operative cause, or the Deity, others dis- 
tinguished the two, and the Deity was partly described 
as the moving cause which brought form and matter 
together, as in the Platonic Timseus, and partly as the 
One, which then produced derived unity and duality. 
The latter is a form of doctrine which unites the Stoic 
monism with the Platonic-Aristotelian dualism, and 
thus prepares the way for Neo-Platonism. The same 
contrast is repeated in the assertions about the relation 
of Grod and the world. One section regard the Deity 
as higher than the reason, and place it so far above all 
that is finite, that it cannot enter into direct contact 
with anything that is corporeal ; others describe Grod 
as the soul which permeates the whole body of the 
world, and follow the Stoics in describing this soul as 
warmth, or pneuma. The formal principle was thought 
to comprehend all numbers, with which the ideas are 
now considered exactly identical. But the importance 
of the separate numbers was a matter of much fanciful 
speculation in the school in which the ordinary mathe- 
matics were eagerly studied. Yet even here the new 
Pythagoreans deviated from the old as well as from 
PJato. They regarded the ideas or numbers as thoughts 
of the Deity. Hence they wished them to be regarded 
not as the substance of things, but only as the 
original forms, after which they were fashioned. The 
Platonic descriptions of matter were taken literally; 
the world-soul was placed between matter and the 
ideas as Plato had placed it, and the so-called Locrian 
Timseus adopted the Platonic construction of the soul. 



i 



§91] thu neo-ptthagoeeans. sod 

Besides metaphysics every other part of philosophy 
was treated in the Neo-Pythagorean writings. A proof 
of the logical activity of the school can be found, among 
other works, in the pseudo-Archytean treatise ' On the 
Universe,' which treats the doctrine of the Categories 
mainly after the Aristotelian pattern, but with many 
deviations. In their 'physics the Neo-Pythagoreans 
primarily follow Plato and the Stoics. They extol the 
beauty and perfection of the world, which are not in- 
jured by the evil in it, and above all, they regard the 
stars as visible deities. P>om Aristotle they borrowed 
the doctrine of the eternity of the world and the human 
race, a tenet which was universally maintained in the 
school from the time of Ocellus ; they also chiefly 
follow Aristotle in their assertions about the contrast 
of the heavenly and earthly worlds, the unchangeable- 
ness of the one, and the changeability of the other. 
With Plato and the old Pythagoreans magnitudes of 
space are derived from the numbers, and the elements 
from the regular bodies ; but, on the other hand, we 
also meet, in Ocellus, with the Aristotelian doctrine of 
the elements. The anthropology of the school is that 
of Plato ; in this matter the Pythagorean Alexander (p. 
306) alone places himself on the side of Stoic material- 
ism. The soul is regarded with Xenocrates as a number 
moving its ;lf, and other mathematical symbols are used 
for it : the Platonic doctrine of the parts of the soul, 
its pre-existence and immortality, is repeated ; but so 
far as we know, the migration of the soul is, strangely 
enough, thrown into the background among the Neo- 
Pythagoreans, while the belief in demons plays an 



3J0 PRECURSORS OF NEO-PLATONISM, [§ 91 

important part among them. Nicomachus even brings 
the demons into connection with the angels of the 
Jews. 

The existing fragments of the numerous ethical and 
'political writings of the school present only colourless 
repetitions of Platonic and still more of Peripatetic 
determinations, with proportionately few additions from 
the Stoics. The peculiarity of the Neo-Pythagorean 
school is more definitely marked in their religious 
doctrines. On the one hand, we find a more refined idea 
of God, and in reference to the highest god the demand 
for a purely spiritual worship ; on the other, the national 
worship is presupposed, a higher value is ascribed to 
prophecy, and a purity of life required, to which belong 
the abstinences common in the Pythagorean mysteries. 
This element is developed more strongly in their de- 
scriptions, which set forth the ideal of Neo-Pythagorean 
philosophy in Pythagoras and Apollonius of Tyana, and 
which we find in the notices of the biographies of Pytha- 
goras written by Apollonius, Moderatus, and Nicomachus, 
and in the ' Life of Apollonius ' by Philostratus (written 
about 220 a.d.). Here philosophy appears as the true re- 
ligion, the philosopher as a prophet and servant of God. 
The highest mission of mankind, the only means for 
liberating the soul from the entanglements of the body 
and sensuality, is purity of life and true worship of the 
gods. If this view is accompanied by noble ideas of 
the Deity and a virtuous life devoted to the good of 
mankind, yet, on the other hand, asceticism is an 
essential part of it. In its full extent this asceticism 
comprises abstinence from flesh and wine, and from 



§81] THE NEO-PYTHAGOREANS. 811 

marriage ; the linen dress of the priests ; the forbidding 
of all oaths, and animal offerings; and within the 
societies of ascetics and philosophers, community of 
goods and all the other arrangements ascribed by the 
ancient legend to the old Pythagoreans. The most 
obvious reward of this piety consists in the power of 
working miracles, and in the prophetic knowledge bor- 
dering on omniscience, proofs of which abound in the 
biographies of Pythagoras and ApoUonius. 

§ 92. The Pythagorising Platonists, 

The tendency of thought, which was first announced 
in the appearance of the new Pythagoreans, afterwards 
found an echo among the Platonists, from whom the 
Pythagoreans had originally borrowed the most impor- 
tant part of their doctrines. Eudorus (p. 282) is seen 
to be influenced by them ; they occur more definitely 
in Plutarch (p. 297), who was the most influential repre- 
sentative in the first century a.d. A Platonist, who is 
nevertheless open to the influence of the Peripatetic, 
and in some details even of the Stoic, philosophy, in 
spite of all his polemics against their principles, and to 
whom the Epicurean school only is absolutely abhorrent, 
Plutarch accepts Plato's teaching almost entirely in 
the sense of the Neo-Pythagoreans who preceded him. 
He ascribes but little value to theoretic questions as 
such, and even doubts the possibility of their solution. 
The more lively, on the contrary, is his interest in 
everything which is of importance for the moral and 
religious life. He opposed the Stoic materialism and 
the Epicurean ' atheism ' {adsoTris) no less than the 



812 PRECURSORS OF NEO-PLATONISM. [§92 

national superstition with a pure view of the Deity corre- 
sponding to Plato's. But in order to explain the nature 
of the world of phenomena he finds a second principle 
indispensable. This he does not seek in matter, which 
is without properties, but in the evil world-soul, which, 
being connected with matter from the beginning, and 
first filled with reason and order at the formation of 
the world, was changed into the divine soul of the world, 
yet continues to exercise an influence as the final source 
of all evil. Deviating from the majority of the Neo- 
Pythagoreans, he conceives the creation of the world 
as an act in time. The divine operation in the world 
he regards less under the form of the Platonic doctrine 
of ideas and the Pythagorean speculation on numbers 
than under the ordinary belief in providence. Contro- 
verting Epicurus, and the fatalism of the Stoics, he 
attributes the highest value to this belief. But the 
higher that he has elevated the Deity above all that is 
finite the more important are the demons as the 
intermediaries in its operation on the world. To these 
he transfers everything which he does not venture to 
ascribe directly to the Deity, and he has much that is 
superstitious to say about them. That he not only 
assumes five elements, but also a quintette of worlds, is 
a trait peculiar to him. What Plato stated in mythical 
language about a change of the condition of the world 
is accepted by him in so dogmatic a manner that he 
here approaches the Stoic teaching which he elsewhere 
controverts. Certain Aristotelian theories were mingled 
with the Platonic anthropology ; freedom of the will 
and immortality, including the migration of souls, are 



§92] PLUTATtCH. 313 

distinctly maintained. The Platonic and Peripatetic 
ethics were defended by Plutarch against the different 
theories of the Stoics and Epicureans, and applied to 
the various relations of life in a pure, noble, and moder- 
ate way. In this it is natural that we should find an 
influence of Stoic cosmopolitanism, and a limitation of 
political interests, owing to the nature of the times. 
The most characteristic mark of the Plutarchian ethics 
is their close connection with religion. Pure as Plu- 
tarch's idea of Grod is, lively as are his descriptions of the 
perverseness and corruptions of superstition, yet in the 
warmth of his religious feelings and the small confi- 
dence which he reposes in man's power of knowledge, 
he cannot abandon the belief that the Deity comes to 
our assistance by direct revelations. These we receive 
the more clearly in proportion as we are freed by enthu- 
siasm from any activity on our own part. At the same 
time he takes into consideration the natural conditions 
and helps for these revelations, and thus his theory 
makes it possible for him to justify the belief of his 
people in prophecy in the manner which had long 
been usual among the Stoics and Neo-Pythagoreans. 
His general attitude to the national religion is the same. 
The gods of the different nations are, as he says, only 
different names to denote one and the same divine 
nature, and the powers which serve it. The contents of 
the myths form philosophical truths, which Plutarch 
could enucleate from them with 2^1 the traditional 
caprice of allegorical exposition. Shocking and disgust- 
ing as many religious usages might be, yet his doctrine 
of demons, if no other means sufficed, enabled him to 



314 PRECURSORS OF NEO-PLATONISM. [§92 

find superficial justification for them. Yet he did not 
require the Pythagorean asceticism. 

Along with Plutarch we find among the later Plato- 
nists (p. 297) two rhetoricians of kindred spirit, Maxi- 
mus and Apuleius, in whose eclectic Platonism, beside 
the opposition of Grod and matter, the demons play a 
great part as intermediaries in the contrast. Theo of 
Smyrna shared in the Neo-Pythagorean doctrine of the 
original bases and of numbers. The eternity of the 
world, the assumption that the ideas are the thoughts 
of the Deity, the demons, to whose protection the world 
beneath the moon is confided, meet us in Albinus ; 
the evil world-soul of Plutarch in Atticus. Celsus, 
like his predecessors, sees in demons the intermediaries 
of the divine operation on the world, which cannot be 
direct owing to the sublimity of God, and the opposi- 
tion in which he stands to matter. He makes use of 
this assumption in order to defend polytheism and the 
national worship. Numenius of Apamea (about 160 
A.D.) is still nearer to the Neo-Pythagorean s, and is 
generally considered to be one. Yet the foundation 
of his views is formed by Platonism, besides which, 
with wide- extending syncretism, he appeals toMagians, 
Egyptians, and Brahmins, and even to Moses, whom he 
holds in high repute (Plato is a M.(Darjs arTifCi^cov), 
He also appears to have used Philo of Alexandria and 
the Christian Grnostics. Beginning with the distinction 
of God and matter, of unity and indefinite duality 
(p. 307), he makes the gulf between the two so great 
that he considers a direct operation of the highest 
deity on matter as impossible, aud hence (like the 



§921 NUMENIUS, HEBMES TRISMEGISTUS. 315 

Grnostic Valentinus), he inserts between them the 
creator of the world, or Demiurge, as a second deity. 
The world itself he called a third deity. Like Plu- 
tarch he supposed that an evil soul was united with 
matter. From this arose the mortal part of the human 
soul, which he named a second, irrational soul. De- 
graded from an incorporeal life, by its guilt, into the 
body, the soul, when it again departs, becomes indis- 
solubly united with the Deity, if it is in need of no 
migration through other bodies. Insight is a gift of the 
gods, and for men the highest good. This gift is only 
allotted to him who applies himself to the primal good, 
to the exclusion of all other thoughts. Cronius and 
Harpocration, so far as we know, tended in the same 
direction as Numenius. 

An Egyptian branch of the Neo-Pythagorean and 
Platonic school is the source from which, apparently 
towards the end of the third century, the majority of the 
writings arose which have come down to us under the 
name of Hermes Trismegistus. Here also we find the 
expression of that which is the leading trait of the 
school — the effort to fill up the chasm between the world 
and the Deity by intermediate creatures. The highest 
deity is raised above both as the author of being and 
reason. He is the good, which is also thought of as a 
willing and thinking being, as a personality. The vovs 
is related to him as the light to the sun, being at the 
same time different and inseparable from him. On the 
V0V9 depends the soul (more doubtfully (jyvaLs), between 
which and matter stands the air. When matter was 
arranged and animated by the Deity, the world was 



816 PRECURSORS OF NEO-PLATONISM. [§ 92 

created. Supported by the divine power, filled with 
visible and invisible gods and demons, the world is 
regarded as the second god, and man as the third. 
The unalterable course of the world, providence, and 
destiny were taught in the Stoic fashion ; the Platonic 
anthropology is repeated with many additions, which 
do not altogether agree with it. The only means to 
secure for the soul its future return to its higher home, 
is piety, which here coincides with philosophy, and 
consists essentially in the knowledge of God, and in 
uprightness. It is obvious that this depends upon the 
renunciation of the sensuous world; yet the ascetic 
consequences of this point of view are seen in isol-ated 
instances only in the Hermetic writings. The more 
strongly do we recognise as their leading motive the 
tendency to defend the national and especially the 
Egyptian religious worship against Christianity, the vic- 
tory of which is already regarded as almost unavoidable. 

n. JEWISH GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

§ 93. The Period before Philo. 

The dualistic speculation of the Neo-Pythagoreans 
and Platonists developed among the Jews, who were 
subject to Greek influences, even more vigorously than 
on purely Greek soil. The Jewish national religion pre- 
sented many important points of contact to this specula- 
tion, in monotheism, in the opposition of God and the 
world, in the belief in revelation and prophecy, in the 
notions about the angels, the spirit of God, and divine 
wisdom. Even in Palestine, when the country was first 



§93] JEWISH-GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 317 

under Egyptian and then under Syrian rule, the Greek 
mode of life and thought became so widely spread that 
Antiochus Epiphanes, in his attempt to Hellenise the 
Jews by force (167 B.C.), could count on a numerous 
party, especially among the Ligker classes. Even before 
this date these views seem to have found acceptance 
(according to Ecclesiast. ix. 2, vii. 28). We find them 
further developed among the Essenes. These were a 
society of Ascetics which arose, apparently in the de- 
cades following the rebellion of the Maccabees, from 
the bosom of the law-abiding but retiring Chasidseans, 
a sect who withdrew from public life. They exhibit so 
important a relationship to the Neo- Pythagoreans, that 
we can only assume that they arose under the influence 
of the Orphic Pythagorean asceticism, and subse- 
quently, after the formation of a Neo-Pythagorean 
philosophy, they adopted many of its doctrines. In 
the first century of our era, in Philo, Josephus, and 
Pliny, the Essenes appear as a society of about 4,000 
members, who lived together with complete community 
of goods, partly in their own settlements, partly in 
houses belonging to their order in the towns. They 
were subject to strict discipline and hierarchical con- 
trol, with priests and officers of their own and absolute 
community of goods. They practised the most extreme 
simplicity ; their principles were strictness of morals, 
truth, and unbounded gentleness; they did not tolerate 
slavery. With this they combioed a purity of life which 
was expressed in peculiar customs. They abstained from 
wine and flesh, and from the use of ointments ; they dis- 
approved of the killing of animals and bloody ofierings. 



318 PRECURSOItS OF NEO-PLATONISM. [§93 

They refused all food whicli was not prepared according 
to the rules of the order ; they required celibacy from 
their members, and even from those of a lower order 
they demanded that they should indulge in marital 
intercourse solely with a view to the procreation of 
children. They had a most punctilious dread of any 
Levitic defilement ; they wore only white garments ; 
they forbade oaths ; they replaced the national worship, 
from which they were excluded, by their daily baths and 
common meals. They had their own doctrines and 
rules, which were kept strictly secret; while they 
adapted the Scriptures of their nation to their own 
point of view by allegorical interpretation. They 
believed in a pre-existence of the soul, and an in- 
corporeal life after death ; with which they appear to 
have combined the thought that the opposition of better 
and worse, of male and female, &c., ran through the 
whole world. They ascribed a special importance to the 
belief in angels (as others did to the belief in demons). 
In the sunlight and the elements they worshipped 
manifestations of the Deity; they considered the gift 
of prophecy to be the highest reward of piety and 
asceticism, and many of them claimed to possess it. 

But in Alexandria, the great centre where Hellenic 
and Oriental civilisation met aud crossed, Greek philo- 
sophy found a far more favourable soil. How early and 
how universally the numerous and opulent Jewish 
population in this city acquired the Greek language, 
and the Greek views which of necessity went with it, 
is shown by the fact that after a few generations the 
Egyptian Jews required a Greek translation of theii 



§93] jmriSH-GItEEK PHILOSOPHY. 319 

Scriptures, because they no longer understood them in 
the original language. The first certain proof of the 
occupation of the Alexandrian Jews with Greek philo- 
sophy is seen in the fragments of a treatise of Ari- 
stobulus (about 150 B.C. We have received them 
through Eusebius, 'Pr. Evang.' vii. 14, viii. 10, xiii. 
1 2. They were without reason suspected by Lobeck and 
Hody, but were defended by Valckenaer). This Jewish 
Peripatetic assured King Ptolemy Philometor that the 
oldest Grreek poets and philosophers, and especially 
Pythagoras and Plato, had used our Old Testament, 
and in order to procure evidence for this assertion, he 
appeals to a series of verses supposed to be the work of 
Orpheus and Linus, Homer and Hesiod, which are, 
however, shameless forgeries, though neither Clemens 
nor Eusebius detected them. On the other hand, he at- 
tempts by interpretation to remove the anthropo- 
morphisms, which shock his advanced thought, from the 
maxims and narratives of the Old Testament. What he 
asserts of his own views, so far as it is of philosophical 
origin, does not contain any reference to that form of 
speculation which we find at a later time in Philo. Of 
this we find definite traces for the first time in the first 
century B.C. in the pseudo-Solomonian 'Book of Wisdom,* 
which, along with some elements which agree with 
Essenism — such as the assertions on the pre-existence of 
the soul, its oppression by the body, and its imperisha- 
bility (viii. 19 f. ; ix. 14 &, &c.), and the assumption of 
a premundane matter (xi. 17 f.) — reminds us of the 
Platonists and Pythagoreans. By its substantiation of 
the divine wisdom (vii. 22 £f.) it prepared the way for 



820 Pkr.CUnsonS OF NEO-PLATOmSM. t§93 

Philo's doctrine of the Logos. To the same period 
belong those predecessors of Philo, whom he frequently 
mentions when he appeals to the rules of allegorical 
explanation which they had laid down, and quotes some 
of these explanations, in which the 'Divine Logos' 
occurs along with some Stoic determinations. But we 
do not know whether and how this Logos was distinctly 
divided from the Deity before the time of Philo. 

§ 94. Philo of Alexandria, 

Philo's life falls between 30 B.C. and 50 A.D. He 
was himself a true son of his nation and filled with the 
highest veneration for its Scriptures, and above all 
for Moses. These Scriptures he considered to be 
verbally inspired, not only in the original text, but 
also in the Greek translation. But at the same time 
be is the pupil and admirer of the Grreek philosophers, 
Plato and Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empedocles, Zeno, 
and Cleanthes. Thus he is convinced that in both 
there is but one and the same truth, which, however, 
is found in purity and perfection only in the Jewish 
revelations. This conviction he justifies by the 
ordinary means. On the one hand, he presupposes 
that the Hellenic sages used the Old Testament writings; 
on the other, he applies the allegorica? explanation of 
Scripture without limits, and can thus discover any 
meaning that he chooses in any passage whatever. 
Hence, although he desires to be merely an expositor of 
Scripture, and puvis forward his views almost entirely in 
this form, his system is yet, in truth, a combination of 
Greek philosophy and Jewish theology, and the scien- 



§04] PiWZO OF ALEXANDRIA. 821 

tific paits come to a preponderant extent from the 
first. But the pliilosophy which he follows belongs 
almost entirely to that form of Platonism which was 
developed in the previous century, primarily at Alex- 
andria, and was named sometimes after Plato, and 
sometimes after Pythagoras, though Stoicism, especially 
in Philo, contributed largely to it. 

The idea of the Deity forms the starting-point of 
the system of Philo. But this is just the point where 
the various tendencies, from which his speculation has 
arisen, cross each other. On the one hand, he has such 
a high conception of the elevation of God above all 
that is finite, that in his view no idea and no name 
can correspond to the Divine majesty. God seems to 
him more perfect than any perfection, better than the 
good, without name and property, and inconceivable. 
As Philo says, we can only know that he is ; we can- 
not know what he is ; only the name of the Existent 
(the name of Jehovah) can be applied to him. On 
the other hand, God must include in himself all being 
and all perfection ; for it is from him alone that per- 
fection can come to the finite, and it is only to avoid 
approaching too nearly to his perfection that no 
finite predicate is to be given to him. Above all, he 
must be thought of as the final cause of all ; a cease- 
less operation must be ascribed to him, and all per- 
fection in created things derived from him. It is 
self-evident that for the Platonists and the Jewish 
monotheists this activity can only be used for the best 
ends ; for of the two essential properties of God, power 



322 THE PRECURSORS OF NEO-PLATOKISM, [§ 94 

and goodness, the second expresses his nature even 
more directly than the first. 

In order to unite this absolute activity of God in 
the world with his absolute superiority to the world, 
Philo has recourse to an assumption which was not un- 
known to others in that period (cf. pp. 283, 312, 315), 
but which no one before Plotinus worked out so system- 
atically as Philo. He assumed the existence of inter- 
mediate beings. As a pattern in defining these more 
precisely he availed himself not only of the belief in 
angels and demons, the statements of Plato about the 
world- soul and the ideas, but above all, of the Stoic 
doctrine of the effluences of the Deity which permeate 
the world. These intermediate beings he calls powers 
(Swdfjists), and describes them, on the one hand, as 
properties of the Deity, as ideas or thoughts of God, 
as parts of the universal power and reason prevailing 
in the world ; and on the other, as the servants, am- 
bassadors, and pursuivants of God, as the performers 
of his will, as souls, angels, and demons. To har- 
monise these two modes of exposition, and give a clear 
answer to the question of the personality of these 
powers, was impossible for him. All these powers are 
comprehended in one, in the Logos. The Logos is the 
most universal intermediary between God and the 
world, the wisdom and reason of God, the idea which 
comprises all ideas, the power which comprises all 
powers, the viceroy and ambassador of God, the organ of 
the creation and government of the world, the highest 
of the angels, the first-born son of God, the second God 
{Bevrepos Oeos, Osos, in opposition to o 6e6s), The 



§94] PHILO. THE LOGOS. 323 

Logos is the pattern of the world and the power which 
creates everything in it, the soul which clothes itself 
with the body of the world as with a garment. In a 
word, it has all the properties which belong to the 
Stoic Logos (p. 240), when we think of this as divided 
from the Deity and set free from the traits which are 
the result of the Stoic materialism. But its per- 
sonality is just as uncertain as that of the * powers ' 
generally ; and this is inevitable, for only so long as 
the conception of the Logos comes between that of a 
personal being distinct from God and that of an im- 
personal divine power or property, is it adapted to 
solve, at least superficially, the unsoluble problem, for 
which it is required — to make it conceivable that Grod 
can be present with his power and operation in the 
world and all its parts, while in his nature he is utterly 
beyond it and is defiled by any contact with matter. 

The nature of the world can only be partly under- 
stood from the divine power operating in it. In order 
to explain the evils and defects of finite existence, and, 
above all, the evil which clings to the soul owing to its 
connection with the body, we must presuppose a second 
principle, and this Philo finds, like Plato, only in 
matter. He also follows Plato in his more precise 
definitions of matter, except that he regards it like 
most authorities as a mass occupying space, and thus 
sometimes names it the fjur] 6v with Plato, and some- 
times ova [a with the Stoics. By the mediation of the 
Logos God formed the world out of the chaotic mix- 
ture of matter. Hence the world had a beginning 
though it has no end. Like the Stoics, Philo con- 



824 THE PBECUHSOnS OF PLATONISM. [§94 

fiidered the world as entirely supported by the opera- 
tive power of God, which is seen in its most glorious 
form in the stars, which are visible gods. Its perfec- 
tion he defends in the sense of the Stoic theodicy, 
but he does not omit to give expression to the thought 
that all is arranged according to numbers, by frequent 
application of the numerical symbolism of the Pyth- 
agoreans. In his anthropology, the part of physics 
to which he ascribes most importance, he adhered to 
the Platonic and Pythagorean tradition of the fall of 
souls, the incorporeal life of the purified souls after 
death, the migration of those who need purification, 
the kinship of the human spirit with the divine, the 
parts of the soul, and the freedom of the will. But 
the most important part with him is the sharp contrast 
between reason and sensuality. The body is the grave 
of the soul, the source of all the evils under which it 
sighs. By the combination of the soul with the body 
there is inborn in everyone the inclination to sin, from 
which no one is ever free from his birth till his death. 
Thus to be freed as far as possible from sensuality 
is the first requisite of the Philonian ethics; he 
demands with the Stoics an apathy, an entire extirpa- 
tion of all passions ; like them, he regards virtue only 
as a good, rejects all sensual pleasure; he professes 
Cynical simplicity, adopts their doctrine of virtue and 
the passions, their description of the wise man, the dis- 
tinction of the wise and the proficient, and with them 
acknowledges himself a citizen of the world. But 
trust in God takes the place of Stoic self-confidence. 
God alone works all g(H)d in us. He alone can plant 



§94] PHILO, ETHICS. 825 

virtue in us; only the man who does good for its 

own sake is truly good; wisdom, on which i3sts all 
virtue, arises only out of faith. But even in this 
virtue Philo deals far less with action than with 
knowledge, or more correctly, with the inner life of the 
pious spirit; for not only does the active (political) 
life thwart it, inasmuch as it entangles us in external 
things and withdraws us from ourselves, but even 
science has only a value for him as a means to piety. 
But even religious perfection has also various stages. In 
its origin the (ascetic) virtue which rests on practice is 
lower than that which is founded on instruction, and 
both are lower than the virtue which arises directly out 
of a divinely-favoured nature. Virtue finds its last and 
highest aim in the Deity only, to which we approximate 
more and more as we come more immediately into con- 
tact with it. Indispensable, therefore, as science may 
be, we only attain the highest when we pass beyond all 
intermediate stages — even the Logos — and in a con- 
dition of unconsciousness, or even of ecstasy, receive 
the higher illumination into ourselves. Thus we see 
the godhead in its pure unity and allow it to operate 
upon us. This attempt to go beyond conscious thought 
had as yet been unknown in Grreek philosophy. Even 
after Philo, two centuries elapsed before it was an 
accepted dogma. 



THIKD SECTION. 
NEO-PLATONJSM, 

§ 95. Origin, Character, and Development of 
NeO'Platonism, 

The views which for centuries had become more 
and more exclusively prevalent in the Platonic and 
Pythagorean schools were developed into a great 
system in the third century of our era. In the con- 
struction of this system not only the Platonic and 
the Aristotelian philosophy, but even the Stoic, was 
used to a great extent. Both internal and external 
reasons allow us to suppose that Philo's doctrine also 
had, directly or indirectly, an effect on its origin. 
If the predecessors of Neo-Platonism had found the 
importance of philosophy in the fact that it brought 
us into connection with the Deity, and conducted us 
to that infinite essence, elevated above all being and 
conception, the attempt was now made to derive the 
totality of finite things, including matter, from an 
original essence which was entirely unknown and in- 
dejBnite. In this way preparation was made for a 
gradual elevation to this essence, which finally ended in 
substantial union. The practical aim and the final 
motive of this speculation is the same which the Pla- 
tonlsts and Pythagoreans had previously kept before 
them. Like them, it proceeds from the opposition of 
the finite and infinite, the spirit and matter. But not 
only is this contrast stretched to the most extreme point, 



§95] ORIGIN OF NEO-PLATONISM. 327 

and the unity with Grod, to which man ought to attain, 
forced to the very utmost, but it is also required that 
the contrast shall be methodically derived out of 
unity and the totality of things conceived as a single 
whole proceeding in regular succession from the Deity, 
and returning into it. The dualistic spiritualism of the 
Platonic school is here combined with the monism of 
the Stoics to produce a new result, though the authors 
of this speculation desired to be nothing else but true 
disciples and expounders of Plato. 

Ammonius Saccas is called the founder of the 
Neo-Platonic school. He was at first a day-labourer, 
but afterwards became distinguished as a teacher of the 
Platonic philosophy at Alexandria. He appears to have 
died about 242 A.D., but he left no writings behind him. 
Yet it is only untrustworthy accounts from the fifth 
century (Hierocles, and Nemesius apparently following 
Hierocles) who ascribe to him the distinctive doctrines 
of the Plotinic system. We are entirely without any 
original accounts of his doctrine. Among his pupils, 
Origen (who is not to be confounded with the Christian 
theologian of the same name, who is also said to have 
attended Ammonius) did not distinguish the Deity from 
the j/oi)^, above which it was placed by Plotinus, and even 
controverted its distinction from the creator of the world 
(p. 315). A second disciple, Cassius Longinus, the 
well-known critic, philologist, and philosopher (whom 
Aurelian executed 273 A.D.), was equally at variance 
with Plotinus' conception of the Platonic doctrine, and 
defended against him the proposition that the ideas exist 
separately, apart from the (divine) vovs. This proves 



328 NEO-FLATONISM. K^ 

that the doctrine of Ammoums was essentially distinct 
from that of Plotinus, thougli it might approach more 
nearly to it than that of the earlier Plafonists. The 
real founder of the Neo-Platonic school was Ploti- 
nus. This eminent thinker was born in 204-5 A.D. at 
Lycopolis in Egypt. For eleven years he enjoyed the 
teaching of Ammonius. In 244-5 he went to Rome, 
and there founded a school, over which he presided till 
his death. He was universally revered foj his character 
and held in high respect by the Emperor Grallienus 
and his consort Salonina. He died in Campania in 270 
A.D. His writings were published after his death by 
Porphyrins in six enneads.^ After Plotinus, lamblichus 
and the school of Athens mark the most important point 
in the history of Neo-Platonism. By lamblichus it was 
entirely absorbed into the service of positive religion ; 
by the Athenian school, with the aid of the Aristo- 
telian philosophy, it was transformed into a formal 
scholasticism, carried out with masterly logical skill. 

§. 96. The System of Plotinus, The Sujpersensuous 
World. 

The system of Plotinus, like that of Philo, proceeds 
from the idea of God, and comes to a conclusion in the 
demand for union with Grod. Between these poles lies 
all which was taught on the one hand about the origin 



» Editions by Marsilius Fici- (1856) ; H. F. Miiller (1878). On 

nus (1492, often reprinted, finally the system of Plotinus, Kirchner, 

at Basel, 1580, 1615); Creuzer Phil d. Plot. 1854; A. Eichter, 

(Oxford, 1855); A. Kirchhoff Neu^lat. Studien,hILQiie,l^'oifL 



§96] FLOTINUS, THB DEITY. 329 

of derived being out of the Deity, and on the other, 
about its return to the Deity. 

In his conception of the idea of Grod Plotinus 
carries to the extreme point the thought of the 
infinity of Grod, and his elevation above the world. 
Presupposing that the original must be outside the 
derived, that which is thought outside the thinker, the 
one outside the many, he sees himself compelled to 
carry the final source of all that is real and knowable 
entirely beyond all being and knowledge. The original 
essence {ro irpwrov) is without limit, form, or defini- 
tion, the unlimited or infinite {airsipov) ; no corporeal 
and even no intellectual property can be ascribed to it 
— neither thought, nor volition, nor activity. All thought 
contains the distinction of the thinker from thinking 
and from what is thought, all volition the distinction 
of being and activity, which implies plurality ; all 
activity is directed to something beyond ; but the first 
element must be a self-included unity. Moreover, in 
order to think, or will, or be active, there is need of 
something to which the activity is directed ; but Grod 
has need of nothing beyond himself. He does not 
even need himself and cannot be divided from himself. 
Hence we cannot ascribe to him any self-consciousness. 
Here, therefore, for the first time, the denial of the per- 
sonality of Grod, for which Carneades had prepared the 
way (p. 272), comes forward as a decisive principle. No 
definite property can be ascribed to the Deity ; for the 
Deity is that which is above all being and all thought. 
The conceptions of unity and goodness are best suited 
for a positive description of it ; yet even they are 



S30 NEO-PLATONISM, [§96 

inadequate ; for the first merely expresses the denial 
of plurality, and the second implies an operation on 
something external. The divinity is, therefore, only 
the basis to which we must reduce all being and all 
operation ; but of its nature we know nothing, except 
that it is entirely separate from all that is finite and 
known to us. 

In so far as the Deity is the original force, it must 
create everything. But as it is raised above everything 
in its nature and needs nothing external, it cannot 
communicate itself substantially to another, nor make 
the creation of another its object. Creation cannot, as 
with the Stoics, be regarded as the communication of 
the divine nature, as a partial transference of it into 
the derivative creature ; nor can it be conceived as an act 
of will. But Plotinus cannot succeed in uniting these 
determinations in a clear and consistent conception. 
He has recourse, therefore, to metaphors. The First 
principle, he says, by virtue of its perfection flows, as it 
were, over, &c. ; sends forth a beam from itself, &c. 
The rise of what is derivative from the original being 
is said to be a necessity of nature. Yet it is in no 
way needful for that being, and is not connected 
with any change in it. Hence the derivative is con- 
nected with that from which it has arisen, and strives 
towards it ; it has no being which is not created in it 
by its source ; it is filh.'d and supported by, and exists 
only by virtue of, its creation from it. But the creative 
element remains undivided, and external to what is 
created ; so that Plotinus' system has less right to be 
called a system of emanation than a system of dynamic 
pantheism. As the earlier in its essence remains 



§96] PLOTINUS. CREATION OF THINGS. 831 

external to the later, the latter is, of necessity, more 
imperfect than the former : it is a mere shadow or 
reflection of it. And as this relation is repeated with 
every new reproduction, and everything participates in 
what is higher through its immediate cause, the 
totality of the beings which arise from the original 
essence forms a series of decreasing perfections, and 
this decrease goes on till at length being passes into 
not-being, light into darkness. 

The first product of the original essence is vovs^ 
or thought, which is at the same time the highest 
being. The predecessors of Plotinus had already placed 
the truly existent, the ideas, in the divine thought ; 
while Plato, on his part, had ascribed reason and 
thought to the Existent. Plotinus arrived at the 
* First,' in passing beyond all being and thought ; but 
in the descent from the first, these occupy the nearest 
place. The thought of the vovs is not discursive, but 
without time, complete at every moment, and intuitive. 
Its object is formed partly by the First (of which, 
however, even this most complete thought can form no 
adequate and thoroughly uniform picture), and partly, 
as in the Aristotelian vovs, by itself, as being what is 
thought and existent. On the other hand, it does not 
apply itself to what is beneath it. So far a'.* vovs is 
the highest being, the five categories of the intelligible 
apply to it. These categories, which Plotinus borrowed 
from the ' Sophist ' of Plato, are : being, movement, 
fixity (crracTiy), identity, and difference. But the 
later Neo-Platonists, after Porphyry, drop these cate- 
gories of the intelligible, and content themselves with 



332 NEO-PLATONISM, [§96 

the ten Aristotelian categories, against which, as well 
as the four categories of the Stoics, Plotinus had raised 
many objections, and which he allowed to hold good 
for the world of phenomena only. The universal 
element, which is defined more precisely by the cate- 
gories, is called by Plotinus the unlimited or the 
intelligible material. In it lies the basis of plurality, 
which the vovs has in itself in contradistinction to the 
First, and by virtue of which it separates into the 
supersensuous numbers or ideas. Of these ideas one 
must correspond not only to each class, but to each 
separate being as the pattern of its individual peculiarity. 
But at the same time, these ideas are conceived after 
Philo, in a form of exposition yet more common in 
Plotinus, as operative powers or spirits {vol, vospal 
BvvdfjLSts). And as they are not external to each other, 
but in each other, without, however, intermingling, 
they are united again in the unity of the intelligible 
world (^KOcTfios vorjTos) or Platonic avTo^wov. This as 
the realm of the ideas is also the realm of the beautiful, 
the primal beauty, in the imitation of which all other 
beauty consists. 

It follows from the perfection of the vovs that it 
must produce something from itself. This product is the 
soul. The soul also belongs to the divine supersensuous 
world ; it contains the ideas, and is itself number and 
idea; as the phenomenon of the vovs^ii is life and activity, 
and, like the vovs^ it leads an eternal life without time. 
But it already stands on the border of that world. In 
itself indivisible and incorporeal, it yet inclines to the 
divisible and corporeal, over which it watches according 



§96] PLOTINUS. THE SOUL, 338 

to its nature and is intermediary in the operations pro- 
ceeding from vovs. In itself, therefore, it is not so 
homogeneous as the vovs. The first soul, or the world- 
soul, is not only in its nature outside the corporeal world : 
it does not even work directly upon it. If Plotinus 
ascribes self-consciousness toil, yet he finds perception, 
remembrance, and reflection unworthy of it. The first 
soul sends forth a second from it, like a beam. This 
Plotinus calls nature. It is the soul which is united 
with the body of the world, as our soul is united with 
our body. But each of these souls produces and com- 
prises a number of separate souls, which are united 
in it as in their origin, and extend from it to the various 
parts of the world. In these part-souls the lower- 
limits of the supersensuous world are reached ; when 
the divine power descends lower, the result is matter, 
which is its most imperfect manifestation, 

§ 97. Plotinus^ Doctrine of the Phenomenal World, 

In his view of the world of phenomena and its 
bases, Plotinus adheres in the first instance to Plato, 
The sensuous world in contrast to the supersensuous is 
the region of the divisible and changeable — of being 
which is subject to natural necessity, to relations of 
space and time, and is without true reality. The 
source of this world can only lie in matter ; which we 
must presuppose as the general substratum of all be- 
coming and change. As Plato and Aristotle had already 
stated, it is something without form and definition, the 
shadow and mere possibility of being, the not-being, 
deprivation, jpenia. But it is also— and in this point 



334 PLOTINUS. [§97 

Plotinus goes beyond Plato — the evil, and even the 
original evil ; from it arises all that is evil in the corporeal 
world, and from the body arises all the evil in the soul. 
Yet it is necessary. Light must, in the end, at the 
furthest distance from its origin, become darkness ; the 
spirit must become matter ; the soul must create the 
corporeal as its locality. But as the soul illuminates 
and forms that which is beneath it, it enters into rela- 
tion with it. By transferring the supersensuous into 
matter, which can only receive it successively, it creates 
time as the general form of its own life and the life of the 
world. This activity of the soul (or nature, cf. p. 333) 
is nevertheless not a will, but an unconscious creation, 
a necessary consequence of its nature, and for this 
reason the world is without beginning and end, as 
Plotinus teaches with Aristotle. At the same time, 
following the Stoics, he assumes a periodical recurrence 
of the same conditions of the world. But necessary 
as the activity is, it is always a sinking of the soul in 
matter, and it is therefore regarded as a fall of the soul. 
So far as the world is material, it is regarded by 
Plotinus as a shadowy copy of the truly real or super- 
sensuous. Yet as it is the soul which creates it and 
expresses upon it the traits of its origin, everything in 
it is arranged by numbers and ideas, by the creative 
concepts (the \6^oi airspfjiarLKol, cf. p. 240), which are 
the nature of things. Hence it is as beautiful and per- 
fect as a material world can be. The contempt which 
the Christian Gnostics showed for nature is repudiated 
by Plotinus with the true Hellenic feeling for nature ; 
and if he does not acknowledge, for the world at any 



§97] PZOTINl/S. TUB WORLD, 335 

rate, a providence of the gods, resting on purpose and 
will, and directed to details, and the notion of provi- 
dence is expressed in him as the natural operation of the 
higher on the lower, yet the belief in providence as such 
is maintained by him in connection with the Platonic 
and Stoic theodicy. And it is maintained with the 
greater success as his views on the freedom of the will 
and future retribution put him in a position to justify 
on other grounds precisely those evils which caused the 
Stoics so much trouble. Plotinus is also connected with 
the Stoics in his doctrine of the ' sympathy of all things ' 
(p. 242). But while they intended this to mean the 
natural connection of cause and effect, Plotinus means 
by it an operation at a distance, which rests on the 
fact that, owing to the universal vitality and animation 
of the world, everything that affects a part of it is felt 
by the whole, and consequently by all the other parts. 
In the universe the heaven is that into which the 
soul first pours itself. In it therefore dwells the 
purest and noblest soul. Next to the heaven are the 
stars, which are also extolled by Plotinus as visible 
gods. Exalted above change and temporal life, and 
consequently incapable of remembrance, or of capricious 
action, or of a presentation of what is below them, they 
determine the latter with that natural necessity which 
has its source in the connection and sympathy of the 
universe. Astrology, on the other hand, with the notion 
on which it rests — that the stars exert a capricious 
influence on the course of the world — is distinctly con- 
troverted by Plotinus, and astrological prediction is 
limited to the knowledge of future events from the 



836 NBO'PZATOmSM. [|97 

natural prognostics. The space between the stars and 
the earth is the dwelling-place of the demons. Plo- 
tinus shares the ideas of his school about these beings, 
though he interprets them in a psychological manner 
in his teaching of Eros. 

Of earthly beings man only has an independent 
interest for our philosopher. Yet his anthropology is, 
in essentials, merely a repetition of the Platonic. He 
describes, at greater detail and in a more dogmatic 
tone than Plato, the life which the soul leads in the 
supersensuous world, in which it, like the souls of the 
gods, was subject neither to change nor time, without 
remembrance, self-consciousness, and reflection, and 
had a direct intuition in itself of the vovs, the existent 
and primal essence. He regards its descent into a body 
(and even in heaven it clothes itself with an ethereal 
body) as a necessity of nature, and yet as the guilt of 
the soul, inasmuch as it is attracted by an irresistible 
internal impulse into the body which corresponds to its 
nature. He finds the peculiar essence of man in his 
higher nature, to which, however, by its combination 
with the body, a second Ego and a lower soul were 
added, and this second soul, though depending on the 
other, reaches down into the body. Like Aristotle, he 
regards the relation of the soul to the body as the 
same with the relation of operative force to its instru- 
ment. He attempts to conceive the passionate con- 
ditions of the soul, and the activities of it which are 
related to what is sensual, as processes which take place 
partly in the body and partly in it and the lower soul, 
and are merely perceived by the higher. He defends 



§97] PLOTINUS, THE SOUL. 837 

the freedom of the will against the Stoic and all other 
kinds of fatalism in the most vigorous manner ; but 
his defence does not go very deep, and he repeats the 
assertion that evil is involuntary. Freedom is com- 
bined with providence by the remark that virtue is 
free, but her acts arQ entangled in the connection of 
the world. Further, Plotinus repeats the Platonic 
proofs for the immortality of the soul, which, however, 
are again rendered questionable by the fact that the 
souls cannot remember their earthly existence in the 
supersensuous world. He includes entrance into the 
bodies of plants in his migration of souls ; the retri- 
bution, to which it conducts, is formed into a jv^s 
talionis extending to the most minute details. 

§ 98. Plotinus' Doctrine of Exaltation into the 
Supersensitous World, 

As the soul in her nature belongs to a higher 
world, her highest mission can only be to live ex- 
clusively in that world and liberate herself from all 
inclination to the sensual. Happiness, according to 
Plotinus, consists in the perfect life, and this consists 
in thought. Of external circumstances happiness is, 
in his view, so independent, that no Stoic could express 
himself more decisively. The first condition of it is 
liberation fi om the body and from all that is connected 
with it, or purification {KaOapcris); the immediate 
result of which is that the soul, unrestrained by any 
alien element, addresses herself to her special task. 
Katharsis includes all virtues. That this liberation 
from sensuality should be brought about by an ascetic 



838 NEO-PLATONISM. [§98 

life is not universally demanded by Plotinus in spite 
of the abstinences which he laid upon himself and 
recommended to others. In his discussions on Eros 
he agrees with Plato that even sensuous beauty may 
lead us to the supersensuous. But the view that the 
combination with the body is the source of all the 
evil in the soul, and that every activity has a higher 
value as it brings us into less contact with the world 
of senses, governs his entire ethics. Practical and 
political action is indeed indispensable, and the vir- 
tuous man will not withdraw himself from it, but it 
entangles us too deeply in the external world, and 
makes us dependent on something not ourselves. The 
ethical and political virtues are only an imperfect 
compensation for the theoretic. Even these last are 
of very unequal value. Sensuous perception gives us 
but dim traces of truth. Mediated thought {hudvoLa, 
Xoytcr/ios') and its artistic practice, or dialectic, stand 
far higher. They have to do with the truly real, with 
ideas and the essence of things. But this indirect 
knowledge presupposes a direct, the self-intuition of 
the thinking spirit, which is at the same time an 
intuition of the divine vovs. Even this does not satisfy 
our philosopher. It leads us to the vov9, but not 
beyond it, and it allows the distinction of the mind and 
the intuition to remain. We do not reach the highest 
point till we are completely buried in ourselves and 
elevated even above thought, in a state of unconscious- 
ness, ecstasy {sKO-raacs), and siugleness (airXcoais), 
suddenly filled with the divine light. Thus we become 
BO immediately one with the primal being that all dis- 



S»8] VLOTINVS. TBE SUPERSENSUAL. 839 

tinction between it and us disappears. From his own ex- 
perience Plotinus was no doubt acquainted with this con- 
dition, which however, can only be transitory. Among 
his Greek predecessors none had required this transcen- 
dence of thought, just as none had placed the Deity 
above thought. In this Philo alone was his pattern. 

In comparison with this spiritual exaltation to the 
Deity positive religion has, on the whole, only a sub- 
ordinate importance for Plotinus. It is true that he is 
far removed from taking up a critical attitude in op- 
position to it. Besides the Deity in the absolute sense, 
his system recognises a number of higher beings which 
can be regarded partly as visible and partly as invisible 
gods. He pronounces a distinct reproof when anyone 
(like the Christians) refused to them their appropriate 
honours. He interprets the gods of mythology and 
their history, so as to apply to these deities, with the 
usual caprice, though he does not occupy himself 
so eagerly with this subject as many of the Stoics 
had done. Further, he makes use of his doctrine 
of the sympathy of all things for a supposed rational 
foundation of the worship of images, prophecy, 
prayer, and magic, under which he includes every 
inclination and disinclination, and every operation of 
the external on the internal. On the other hand, he 
does not find it possible to combine a perception of 
that which happens on the earth, or a personal in- 
fluence on the course of the world, with the nature of 
the gods. But though he laid the foundation on which 
his successors continued to build in their defence and 
systematisation of the national religion, his own attitude 



840 NJSO'PLATONISM. [§ 98 

to it is comparatively free. For his own requirements 
his ideal sense is satisfied with the inward worship of 
the philosopher. *The gods,' he said, ajp. Porphyr. 
V. Plot.' 10, when Amelius wished to take him into 
a temple, ^ must come to me ; it is not I who must go 
to them.' 

§ 99. The School of Plotinus, Poirphyry, 

Among the pupils of Plotinus, Grentilianus Amelius, 
who has just been mentioned, is shown in the little 
that we know of him to have been a thinker without 
clearness, an intellectual kinsman and admirer of Nu- 
menius. Far clearer is the learned Porphyry (properly 
Malchus) of Tyre. He was born 232-3 A.D., and first 
attended Longinus, then Plotinus, and died after 301, 
apparently in Kome. Besides some Platonic writings, 
he commented on a good many of Aristotle's works, 
and devoted his attention especially to the Aristotelian 
logic (his introduction to the categories, and the lesser 
of his commentaries on this tract are still existing). 
This study of Aristotle and the influence of Longinus 
must have helped him in the effort after clearness in 
ideas and expression. He makes it his task to set forth 
and explain, not to examine or systematically develop, 
the doctrine of Plotinus. In his sketch of it {a^opixal 
nrpos ra vorjrd) he lays the greatest weight on the 
sharp distinction of the intellectual and corporeal, 
without in the rest deviating from the determinations 
of Plotinus. In the vovs he distinguishes being, 
thought, and life ; but he would doubtless have hesi- 
tated to speak of three vol, as Amelius had done in 



§99] PORPHYRY, 841 

regard to a similar distinction. In his anthropology, 
to which he devoted several writings, there is a marked 
eflfort, so far as we can see, to combine the unity of the 
soul with the multiplicity of its activities and powers. 
The soul, he says, has the forms {\6yos) of all things 
in itself; according as thought is directed to this or 
that object it assumes a corresponding form. Hence 
he allows the assumption of different parts in the soul, 
only in an improper sense. In like manner, the uni- 
versal soul makes up the essence of the individual 
souls, without dividing itself among them. Porphyry 
ascribes reason to the animals, but will not extend the 
migration of souls to the bodies of animals ; and, on 
the other hand, human souls are not allowed to exalt 
themselves to a superhuman nature. Yet even he 
allows the purified soul to look forward to an entire 
liberation from the irrational powers, but in this 
liberated condition the remembrance of the earthly state 
is extinguished along with the desires. But for Por- 
phyry the chief object of philosophy lies in its practical 
influence, in the ' salvation of the soul.' The most 
important feature in this is the purification, the libera- 
tion of the soul from the body, on which greater stress 
is laid in his ethics than in Plotinus. Purifying virtue 
is, indeed, placed above the practical, but beneath the 
theoretic or paradeigmatic (which belongs to the vovs 
as such). For this purification he demands, more de- 
cidedly than Plotinus, certain ascetic practices, such 
as abstinence from flesh, on which he composed a 
treatise (irspi diroxv^ ^/^i^^X^^)^ celibacy, absence 
fi'om shows and similar amusements. He requires the 



842 KFO-PLATONISM. [§93 

support of positive religion in a greater degree ttian 
Plotinus to aid us in the struggle against sensuality. 
It is true that there was much in the faith and worship 
of his time which he could not accept. He acknow- 
ledges that a pious life and holy thoughts are the best 
worship, and alone worthy of the supersensuous gods. 
In the remarkable letter to Anebo he raises such 
considerable doubts about the prevailing ideas of the 
gods, about demons, prophecy, sacrifices, and astrology, 
that we might believe that he felt it necessary to 
repudiate them all. Yet this is not his meaning. As 
he says, we must elevate ourselves by the natural gra- 
dations—the demons, the visible gods, the soul, and the 
vovs — ^to the First. From this point of view his demono- 
logy, which is filled with all the superstitions of his 
time and his school, provides him with means for 
undertaking the defence of the religion of his people — 
which he supports in his fifteen books against the 
Christians — even against his own doubts. On the one 
hand, he believes that their religion has been falsified 
by wicked demons, so that a purification of it from 
anything that is objectionable is only a restoration of 
it to its original nature. On the other hand, he can 
justify the myths as allegorical explanations of philo- 
sophical truth, the images of gods and sacred animals 
as symbols, and prophecy as an interpretation of natural 
prognostics, in which, no doubt, demons and the souls 
of animals are intermediary agents. Magic and the- 
urgy are justified as a means of operatin.g on the lower 
powers of the soul and nature, and the demons. Even 
those things which he disapproves of in themselves, like 



§99] lAMBLICHUS, 343 

blood-offerings, he allows in public worship as a means 
to lay impure spirits. But the private religion of the 
philosopher must remain free from them. 

§ 100. lamhlichus and his School. 

What in Porphyry was chiefly a concession to the 
traditional form of faith, becomes in his pupil lam- 
hlichus (of Chalcis ; died about 330 A.D.), the central 
point of his scientific activity. For this very reason he 
was deified by his pupils and the later Neo-Platonists 
{Oslos is his usual epithet). lamblichus did not only 
belong to Syria by origin, but he appears to have 
passed his life there, and in his philosophy the in- 
fluences of the East are deeply felt. He was a learned 
scholar, an exponent of Platonic and Aristotelian works, 
and a copious writer — besides many fragments we have 
five books of his crvva'yod'yrj rcov JJvdayopsloyv Boyfid-' 
Tcov, But he is far more of a speculative theologian 
than a philosopher ; and uncritical as he is, he prefers 
to draw his philosophy from the most muddy and recent 
sources. Against the defects of earthly existence, the 
oppression of natural necessity, he can only find aid 
among the gods ; to his fantastic thought every 
moment in a conception is transferred into an inde- 
pendent substance. His need of belief can never be 
satisfied with a multiplication of the divine. On the 
principle that there must be a mediate element be- 
tween every unity and that to which it communicates 
itself, he distinguished a second unity from the one 
inexpressible original essence, which stood midway 
between it and plurality. He divided the vovs of 



844 NEO-PLATONISM, [§100 

Plotinus into an intelligible {votjtos) and an intellec- 
tual world ; and the first, in spite of its unity, which 
was to exclude all multiplicity, into a triad. This 
triad extended into three triads. In like manner, the 
intellectual was divided into three triads, of which the 
last apparently became a hebdomad. The original 
forms belong to the intelligible ; the ideas to the 
intellectual. From the first soul lamblichus derived 
two others, from which, however, he divided the vovs 
which belonged to them, and this also was done in a 
double form. Next to these superterrestrial gods stand 
the terrestrial in three classes | twelve heavenly gods, 
which are again multiplied to thirty-six, and these to 
360 ; seventy-two orders of subcelestial, and forty-two 
of natural gods (the numbers appear to be taken to 
some extent from astrological systems). These are 
followed by angels, demons, and heroes. The national 
deities can be interpreted into these metaphysical 
beings with the usual syncretistic caprice. In a 
similar manner, the worship of images, theurgy, and 
prophecy are defended on grounds in which, in the 
most contradictory manner, the most irrational super- 
stition is combined with the desire to represent the 
miraculous as something rational. This theological 
speculation is united in lamblichus with speculation 
in numbers, to which, after the pattern of the Neo- 
Pythagoreans, he ascribes a higher value than to 
scientific mathematics, much as he prizes the latter. 
In his cosmology, besides the eternity of the world, 
which he shares with his whole school, the most notice- 
able point is his account of nature or destiny {sl/iap' 



§ 100] lAMBLICHUS, 846 

fjism]), so far as he describes this as a power oppressing 
mankind, from the bonds of which he can only be 
liberated by the interference of the gods. In his 
psychology the effort is more strongly marked even 
than in Porphyry to keep for the soul her middle posi- 
tion between infrahuman and superhuman beings. With 
Porphyry also he contests the transition of human souls 
into the bodies of animals, and the more so because he 
did not, like Porphyry ascribe reason to the animals. 
To Porphyry's four classes of virtues (p. 341) he added, 
as a fifth and highest class, the ' single ' {kvialai) or 
' priestly * virtues, which elevate a man to the primal 
essence as such. Yet with him also the most necessary 
part is the purification of the soul, by which alone it 
withdraws from connection with the sensuous world 
and dependence on nature and destiny. 

The mode of thought of which lamblichus is the 
most distinct representative dominates the Neo- 
Platonic school from his time. In the treatise * On the 
Mysteries,' which is ascribed to him, and which is 
apparently the work of one of his immediate pupils, 
sacrifices, prophecy, theurgy, &c., are defended, against 
Porphyry (p. 342), quite in his spirit, with the aid of 
the proposition that we can only attain to the higher 
by the aid of the lower, and that man, at any rate, 
owing to his sensual nature, cannot dispense with these 
material intermediaries. The defence is carried out 
with success and skill. But at the same time stress is 
laid on the fact that only divine revelation can instruct 
us in the means by which we can enter into union with 
the Deity. The priests, therefore, who are the deposi- 



846 NEO'PLATONISM, [§ 100 

taries of this revelation, stand far higlier than the 
philosophers. Among the pupils of lamblichus who are 
known to us, Theodorus of Asine, who also attended 
Porphyry, appears to have been the most important. In 
the accounts of him, which we owe almost exclusively to 
Proclus — he seems to have preceded the latter in the 
attempt to carry out a triple arrangement through the 
parts of the supersensuous world. The primal being, 
from which he does not, like lamblichus, distinguish a 
second unity, is followed by three triads, into which he 
divided the vovs : an intelligible, an intellectual (being, 
thought, life, p. 340), and a demiurgic, which in turn 
included three triads. Then come three souls, of 
which the lowest is the world-soul, or destiny, and its 
body is nature. What is known to us of his more 
precise determinations on these beings is very formal, 
and degenerates into mere childishness. Of two other 
pupils of lamblichus, ^desius and Sopater, we only 
know that the first followed him in the management 
of the school, and the second obtained influence at 
court under Constantino J., but was afterwards ex- 
ecuted. Dexippus is known to us by his explanation 
of the categories, in which he depends entirely upon 
Porphyry and lamblichus. Among the pupils of 
^desius, Eusebius took a scientific direction, but the 
greatest influence was exercised by Maxim us, whose 
death was finally caused by his arrogance and his 
theurgic arts (about 370 A.D.). He and his associate 
Chrysanthius, who was personally more attractive and 
estimable, gained over the Emperor Julian for philo- 
sophy and the older deities. Other members of this 



$ 100] PUPILS OF lAMBLICHUS, 847 

circle are Priscus, Sallustius, Eunapius (p. 13), and 
the famous orator Libanius. When Julian, after his 
accession (361 a.d.), undertook to restore the Hellenic 
religion, he was led to this step by the Neo-Platonist 
philosophy. But the attempt must have failed even if 
the early death of its author (363) had not brought it 
to a sudden end. Julian's writings, so far as they are 
of a philosophical nature, do not exhibit, any more than 
his friend Sallustius' book on the gods, an independent 
advance in the propositions borrowed from lamblichus. 
The intellectual Hypatia^ who was at the head of the 
Platonic school at Alexandria, and brought it to a high 
state of prosperity, finally fell a victim (41 5) to the 
fanaticism of the Christian rabble. If we may draw 
this conclusion from the treatises of her pupil Syn- 
esius. Bishop of Ptolemais (365-415), she appears to 
have taught the Neo-Platonic doctrine in the form in 
which lamblichus had stated it. 

§ 101. The School of Athens. 

The final application of the Neo-Platonic science 
was caused by the study of Aristotle. This had never 
become extinct in the school during the fourth century, 
though after the time of lamblichus it undeniably 
lost ground in influence and importance before theo- 
sophical speculations and theurgy. Now, however, it 
was resumed with greater and more lasting eagerness, 
since the school, after the failure of Julian's attempt 
at restoration, found itself in the position of a sup- 
pressed and persecuted sect, with hopes almost entirely 
restricted to its scientific activity. In Constantinople, 



848 NEO-PLATONISTS. [§101 

during the second half of the fourth century, Themis- 
tius devoted himself to the explanation of the Aristote- 
lian and Platonic writings. If he cannot be counted 
among the Neo-Platonists owing to his somewhat 
superficial eclecticism, yet he coincides with them in. 
his conviction of the entire agreement of Aristotle and 
Plato. But the chief seat of Aristotelian studies was 
the Platonic school at Athens. This school also carried 
out that combination of Aristotelism with the theosophy 
of lamblichus, which imprinted a peculiar stamp on 
the Neo-Platonism of the fifth and sixth centuries, 
and the Christian and the Mohammedan philosophy 
which sprang from it. About the beginning of the 
fifth century we meet with the Athenian Plutarchus, 
the son of Nestorius, who died in 431-2 at a great age, 
as the leader of the school and an eminent teacher. 
Plutarchus explained the writings of Plato and Ari- 
stotle with equal zeal both in writings and in lectures. 
The little that we know of his philosophical views does 
not go beyond the tradition of his school. It deals 
chiefly with psychology, which he treats carefully on 
the foundation of Aristotle and Plato. At the same 
time, we are told that he had acquired from his father 
and propagated all kinds of magical and theurgic arts. 
Of his pupils, Hierocles is known to us by some writings 
and excerpts. He taught philosophy in his native 
city of Alexandria at the same time as Olympiodorus, 
the Aristotelian. In his writings we see a philosopher 
who in general stands on the footing of Neo-Platonism, 
but ascribes a far greater value to such doctrines as are 
practically fruitful than to metaphysical speculation. 



§101] PLUTAHCH. STRIANUS. 849 

His pupil Theosebius followed in a similar direction. 
The more eagerly was this speculation carried on by 
Syrianus, the collaborator and successor of Plutarch, 
who was a fellow-citizen and pupil of Hierocles. This 
Platonist, who is so highly praised by Proclus and 
later writers, was at the same time an accurate scholar 
and eager exponent of Aristotle. But his guiding 
authorities, besides Plato, whom he places far below 
Aristotle, are the Neo-Pythagorean and Orphic writings, 
and the supposed Chaldsean divine utterances. The 
favourite object of his speculation is theology. But in 
scientific completeness his treatment of the subject * is 
far behind that of Proclus. From the One, which is 
without opposites, he primarily derives with the Neo- 
Pythagorean s the unit and the indefinite duality as 
the most universal causes of things. In the vovs he 
distinguished with lamblichus the intelligible and the 
intellectual, at the head of which stands the demiurge. 
The ideas were thought to have originally existed as the 
primary forms or unified numbers in the intelligible, 
and afterwards in a derivative manner in the intelligence 
of the demiurge. With regard to the soul, he remarked 
(according to Proclus, ' In Tim.' 207 B.) that it partly 
remained in itself, and partly came forth from itself, and 
partly returned to itself, without, however, applying this 
distinction, if it really belongs to him, to the totality of 
actual things. Of other views, we may mention that 
he maintained in regard to ' immaterial ' bodies that 

• So far as we know it from on the metaphysics, Schol. in 
the single specimen which is Arist. 837 ff., and from Proclus, 
left, a part of his commentary In Timcevm, 



850 NEO-PLATOmSM. [§ lOi 

they could occapy the same space with others, and 
that the souls continued after death in their ethereal 
bodies, for ever united with the higher of the irrational 
powers of life, and with the lower for a time. For 
the rest, he does not appear to have differed from 
the traditions of his school. 

Of the pupils of Plutarchus and Syrianus, Proclus, 
the Lycian, was the successor of the last. He was bom 
in Constantinople in 410 A.D., came to Athens in his 
twentieth year, and there died in 485 a.d. Besides 
him his fellow-pupil Hermias, who taught at Alex- 
andria, is of little importance. By his iron industry, 
his learning, his mastery in logic, his systematic spirit, 
and his fruitful work as a teacher and a writer,^ Proclus 
is as distinguished among the Platonists as Chrysippus 
among the Stoics. But he was at the same time an 
ascetic and a believer in theurgy, who thought that 
he received revelations, and could never have enough 
of religious exercises. He shared in the religious 
enthusiasm of his school, in their faith and their 
superstition, in their regard for Orphic poems, Chal- 
dsean oracles, and the like. He now undertook to 
work up into a single methodical system the whole 
mass of theological and philosophical tenets handed 
down by his predecessors. This system, in its formal 
completeness, in the inward want of freedom of thought 
from which it arose, and in the absence of any really 
scientific foundation and treatment, may be compared 

> On the writings of Proclus, b. 778 f. Freudenthal in Hermes^ 
of which only a part has been xvi. 214 f 
preserv^ed, of. Phil, d, Chr. iiL 



§101^ PROCZUS. 851 

as a Hellenic pattern with the systems of the Christian 
and Mohammedan sdiolastics. The prevailing law, 
upon which this system is constructed, is that of 
triadic development. The thing produced is, on the 
one hand, similar to that which produces it, for one 
can only produce the other by communicating itself to 
it. On the other hand, it differs from it as what 
is divided from unity, as the derivative from the 
original. In the first respect, it remains in its cause, 
and the cause, though only incompletely, in it ; in the 
second, it proceeds out of the cause. But inasmuch as 
it clings to it, and is related to it, it turns to it in 
spite of the separation, seeks to imitate it on a lower 
stage, and unite with it. The existence of what is 
produced in that which produces it, its emergence from 
it, and its return to it (fiovij, TrpooSos, sTTLarpocpri) are 
the three moments, by the continuevi repetition of which 
the totality of things is developed from their origin. 
The final source of this development can naturally be 
nothing but the original essence, which Proclus de- 
scribes after Plotinus as absolutely elevated above all 
being and knowledge, as higher than the unit, as a 
cause without being the cause, as neither being nor 
not-being, &c. But between this first and the intel- 
ligible he inserts with lamblichus (p. 344) an inter- 
mediary member : the absolute unities {avrorsXsis 
hdSss) which form the single, supernal number, but 
which are at the same time denoted as the highest 
gods, and in that capacity receive predicates which are 
far too personal for their abstract nature. After them 
comes the province which Plotinus allotted to the vov9. 



Sm iS'EO-PLATOmSM. t§101 

Proclus, partly following lamblichus and Theodorus (p. 
344), divides this into three spheres : the intelligible, 
the intellectual-intelligible {yorjTov afia koX vospov), 
and the intellectual. The chief property of the first is 
being ; of the second, life ; of the third, thought. Of 
these spheres the two first are again divided into three 
triads each, somewhat on the same principles of divi- 
sion. The triad is divided into seven hebdomads, and 
the separate members of each series are regarded 
at the same time as gods and identified with one 
of the deities of the national religion. The soul, 
of which the conception is defined as in Plotinus, 
comprises three classes of part-souls : divine, de- 
monic, and human. The divine are divided into three 
orders : the four triads of hf^gemonic gods, an equal 
number of gods free from the world {aTroXvroi) and 
the gods within the world, which are divided into star- 
gods and elementary gods. In interpreting the national 
gods in reference to this system, Proclus finds it 
necessary to assume a triple Zeus, a double Kore, and a 
triple Athene. The demons are connected with the 
gods. They are divided more precisely into angels, 
demons, and heroes, and described in the ordinary 
way with a large admixture of superstition. Next 
to them come the souls which enter temporarily 
into material bodies. Plotinus had allowed matter to 
be created by the soul ; Proclus derives it immediately 
from the unlimited, which with him, in combination 
with the limited and the mixed, forms the first of the 
intelligible triads. As to its nature, it is not with him 
the evil, but neither good nor evil. His cosmological 



§101] PROCLUS. 863 

ideas agree in all that is essential with those of Plo- 
tinus, except that he regards space as a body consisting 
of the finest light, which body penetrates that of the 
world (of. Syrian, p. 349). Like Plotinus, he undertakes 
the defence of Providence, on account of the evil in the 
world. He joins him and Syrianus in his assumptions 
about the descent and the future fortunes of the soul. 
In his psychology he combines Platonic and Aristotelian 
determinations, but increases the number of the soul's 
capacities by dividing the principle of unity or divinity 
in men from thought or reason. This element is higher 
than the others, and by it only can the divine be known. 
His ethics require an elevation to the supersensuous, 
ascending by degrees through the five classes of virtues 
(which we found in lamblichus, p. 345). With him also 
the final object of this elevation is the mystic union 
with the Deity. But the more firmly he is convinced 
that all higher knowledge rests on divine illumination, 
and that it is faith alone which unites us with the 
Deity, the less is he inclined to abandon all those 
religious helps to which the Neo-Platonic school since 
lamblichus had ascribed so high a value, and the 
efficiency of which Proclus also defends on traditional 
grounds. His explanations of myths are naturally 
conceived in the same spirit. 

In the hands of Proclus the Neo-Platonic doctrine 
received the final form in which it was handed down to 
posterity. The school had some eminent represen- 
tatives after his time, but none who can be compared 
with him in scientific power and influence. His pupil 
Ammomus, the son of Hermias (p. 350), who taught in 



354 NEO-PLATONISM, [§ 101 

Alexandria for a considerable time, as it seems, and 
enjoyed a great reputation, was an excellent exponent 
of the Platonic, and even more so of the Aristotelian, 
writings, and a great proficient in the mathematical 
sciences. But we do not find in him any independent 
views of importance. Asclepiodotus, whom Simplicius 
(^Phys.' 795, 13) calls the best pupil of Proclus, 
an eminent mathematician and physicist, appears to 
have been distinguished from the majority of his party 
by a jejune mode of thought, inclined to theological 
extravagances and theurgic practices. Marinus, the 
biographer of Proclus and his successor in the manage- 
ment of the school, was of little importance ; his suc- 
cessor, the Isidorus whom Damascius admired (* Vita 
Isid.' ajp. Phot. 'Cod.' 181. 242), was a confused theo- 
sophist in the style of lamblichus. Of Hegias, another 
pupil of Proclus who followed Isidorus, we know no 
more than of other pupils whose names are handed down 
to us. Damascius, the pupil of Marinus, Ammonius, 
and Isidorus, who was head of the school at Athens about 
520-530 A.D., an admirer and intellectual kinsman of 
lamblichus, endeavours in vain in his work on the 
ultimate sources {irzpl ap^cdv^) to find the means of 
transition from the primal essence — of the inconceiv- 
ability of which he cannot speak strongly enough — to 
the intelligible by the insertion of a second and third 
unity. In the end he finds himself forced to the 
confession that we cannot properly speak of an origin 
of the lower from tlie higher, but only of one uniform, 

* First, partially, edited in writings, see Phil. d. Gr. ill. b. 
1826, by Kopp. On his oilier 838. 7. 



§101] SUCCESSOJRS OF PROCLUS. 355 

undistinguished being. Simplicius belongs to the last 
heathen generation of Neo-PIatonists. He was a pupil 
of Ammonius and Damascius, and his commentaries on 
several of Aristotle's works are invaluable to us. They 
are evidence, not only of the learning, but of the clear- 
ness of thought of their author, but they never go 
beyond the limits of the Neo-Platonic tradition. To 
the same generation belong Asclepius and the younger 
Olympiodorus, two pupils of Ammonius, of whom we 
have commentaries, and others also. But in the 
Christianised Eoman Empire, philosophy could not long 
maintain itself independently of the victorious Church. 
In the year 529 a.d. Justinian forbade philosophy to be 
taught in Athens. The property of the Platonic school 
was confiscated. Damascius, with six associates, among 
whom was Simplicius, emigrated to Persia, from whence 
he soon returned undeceived. Shortly after the middle 
of the sixth century the last of the Platonists who did 
not enter the Christian Church seem to have died out. 
Olympiodorus composed his commentary on the * Me- 
teorology' after 564 a.d. 

In the western half of the Roman Empire, Neo- 
Platonism appears to have been propagated only in the 
simpler and purer form which it received from Plotinus 
and Porphyry. Traces of its existence are perhaps to 
be found in the logical works and translations of 
Marius Victorinus (about 350), of Vegetius (Vectius, 
Vettius) Praetextatus (died, apparently, 387), Albinus, 
so far as we know anything of him, and in the ency- 
clopaedic work of Marcianus Capella (350-400). More 
distinctly do they appear in Augustine (353-430), and 



366 NEO-PLATONISM, [§ 101 

the two Platonists Macrobius (about 400) and Chal- 
cidius (in the fifth century). The last representative 
of ancient philosophy here is the noble Anicius 
Manlius Severinus Boethius, who was born about 
480, and executed at the command of Theodoric in 
525. Although he belonged outwardly to the Christian 
Church, his real religion was philosophy. In this he is 
a follower of Plato and Aristotle, who, in his view, 
completely agree. His Platonism has a Neo-Platonic 
hue. But in his philosophic ' Consolation ' the influ- 
ence of the Stoic morality cannot fail to be recognised. 



INDEX. 



ACHAECUS, 295 
Adrastus, 296 
iEdesius, 346 
^lius Stilo, 277 
^milius Paulus, 275 
^nesidemus, 301 ff. 
^schines the Socratic, 114 
^schines the Academician, 280 
Aetius, 8 
Agrippa, 302 
Academy, the old, 165 ff. 

— the new, 269 ff. 

— after Clitomachus, 283 ff., 
297 ff. 

Acusilaus, 25 

Albinus the older, 297 ff., 314 

— the younger, 355 
Alcidamas, 92 
Alcinous, 298 note 
Alcmseon, 57 
Alexander the Great, 171 

— of ^g£e, 295 

— of Aphrodisias, 296 ff., 14 

— Polyhistor, 11, 306, 309 
Alexin us, 115 
Amafinius, 256 
Amelius, 340 

Ammonius, Plutarch's teacher, 
297 

— Saccas, 327 

— son of Hermias, 353 
Anacharsis, 27 
Anaxagoras, 83-88, 36, 101 
Anazarchus, 83 



ABI 

Anaximander, 39-41 
Anaximenes, 41 ff. 
Anchipylus, 117 
Andronicus, 14, 172, 178, 288 
Anebo, 342 
Anniceris the elder, 127 

— the younger, 122, 126 
Antigonus of Carystus, 10 
Antiochus Epiphanes, 317 

— of Ascalon, 280 

— the Sceptic, 302 
Antipater the Cyrenaic, 122 

— the Stoic, 231, 251 
Antisthenes the Socratic, 117- 

121 

— the Rhodian, 10, 226 
Antoninus, M. Aurelius, 292 ff. 

255, 287 
Anytus, 112 
Apellicon, 179 
ApoUodorus the chronologer, 1 1 

— the Stoic, 278 

— the Epicurean, 11, 256 
ApoUonius the Stoic, 11 

— of Tyana, 12, 307, 310 
Apuleius, 297, 314 
Aratus, 230 
Arcesilaus, 169, 269 
Archedemus, 231, 240 
Archelaus, 88, 101 
Archytas, 49, 128, 307 
Arete, 122 
Aristarchus, 255 
Aristippus the elder, 122 ff. 



358 



INDEX, 



ABI 

Aristippns the younger, 122 

— the Academician, 11 
Aristo, Plato's father, 126 

— of Ceos, 226 f . 

— of Chios, 230, 233, 247, 249 

— later Peripatetic, 283 
Aristobulus, 319 
Aristocles, 12, 296 
Aristophanes of Byzantium, 13, 

132 
Aristotle, 8, 21, 30 fE., 86, 103, 

129, 163, 170 ff. 260, 307 
Aristoxenus, 10, 224 
Aristus, 282 

Arius Didymus, 9, 279, 282, 307 
Arrianus, 291 
Artemon, 178 
Asclepiades, 276 
Asclepiodotus, 354 
Asclepius, 355 
Aspasius, 295 
Ast, 180 note, 132 
Athenodori, the two, 279 
Atomists, 76 fE. 
Attalus, 287 
Atticus, 298 
Augustin, 8, 9 



BASILIDES, 256 
Bernays, 61 note 2, 66 note, 
ni note 1, 220 
Bias, 27 

Boeckh, 15, 45 note 2 
Boethius, 356 
Boethus the Stoic, 277 
— the Peripatetic, 286 
Bonitz, 174 note 
Brandis, 16 
Brucker, 14 
Bywater, 66 note 



CALLIOLES, 92, 96 
Callimachus, 10 
Callippus, 199 
Callisthenes, 171, 225 
Cameades, 271-276 



HEM. 

Cato, 279 
Cebes, 114 
Celsus, Com., 286 

— the Platonist, 298, 314 
Chferemon, 387 
Chaignet, 46 Twte, 126 note 
Chalcidius, 356 
Chamgeleon, 225 
Charmidas, 280 
Charondas, 306 

Chilon, 27 

Chrysanthius, 346 

Chrysippus, 230, 235 ff. 

Cicero, 8, 284 f. 

Cleanthes, 11, 13, 230, 245 S. 

Clearchus, 10, 225 

Cleinias, 49 

Clemens Alex. 8, 9 

Cleobulus, 27 

Cleomedes, 287 

Cleomenes, 230 

Clitomachus, 8, 11, 271, 273 

Clytus, 225 

Colotes, 256 

Cornutus, 287 

Cousin, 16 

Crantor, 13, 169 

Crassitius, 286 

Crates the Cynic, 118, 121 

— the Academician, 169 

— the New Academician, 273 
Cratippus, 283 

Cratylus, 71, 126 
Creuzer, 328 n^te 
Critias, 92, 97 
Critolaus, 226 f. 
Cronius, 297 
Cynics, 117 fE. 293 ff. 
Cyrenaics, 122 £E. 



DAMASCIUS, 13, 356 
Dardanus, 278 
Demetrius of Fhalerum, 225 

— the Epicurean, 256 

— the Cynic, 294 

— the Magnesian, 11 



INDEX. 



859 



DEU 

Democritus, 21, 76 ff, 
Demonax, 294 
Dercyllides, 14 
Dexippus, 346 
Dic^archus, 10, 224 
Diels, 8, 17, 76 note, 177 note 
Dio of Syracuse, 128 

— Chrysostom, 299 
Diodes, 11 

Diodorus Cronus, 115, 116 

— the Peripatetic, 226 
Diogenes of Apollonia, 43 fE. 

— the Democritean, 83 

— the Cynic, 117, 120 

— Laertius, 9, 12 
Dionysius the tyrant, 127 

— the younger, 128 

— the Stoic, 279 

— the Epicurean, 256 ff. 
Dionysodorus, 92, 95 
Dissen, 104 
Domitian, 291 

Duris, 225 



ECPHANTUS, 57, 169 
Eleatic school, 36, 58 ff. 
Elian School, 117 
Empedocles, 36, 71 fE. 
Epicharmus, 57 
Epictetus, 291 ff. 
Epicureans, 31, 255 ff. 
Epicurus, 11, 33, 76 note, 255 ft. 
Epimenides, 25 
Epiphanius, 9 
Eratosthenes, 11, 231, 251 
Erdmann, 17 
Eretrian school, 117 
Erymneus, 226 
Essenes, 317 ff. 
Eubulides, 114 
EucUd, 114, 127 
Eudemus, 8, 223 3. 
Eudocia, 13 

Eudorus, 9, 14, 282, 311 
Eudoxus, 168, 199 
Euemerus, 122 
Eunapius, 13 



Euphrates, 287 

Euripides, 88 

Eurytus, 49 

Eusebius, the Neo-Platonist, 346 

— of Cffisarea, 7, 9 

Euthydemus, 92, 96 

Evander, 270 

Evenus. 92 



FABIANUS PAPIRIUS, 286 
Fabricius, 15 
Favorinus, 12, 304 
Figulus. See Nigidius 
Flamininus, 275 
Freudenthal, 298 note 
FiQleborn, 15 



riAIUS, 297, 298 

U Galenus, 8, 9, 299 

Gallienus, 328 

Gellius, 7 

Geminus, 279 

Gladisch, 19 

Gorgias, 91 ff. 

Grote, 17, 91, 126 note, 131 



HARPOCRATION, 298, 315 
Hecato, 278 
Hegel, 5, 16, 69, 91 
Hegesias, 122, 125 
Hegesinus (-silaus), 270 
Hegias, 354 
Heinze, 17 
Heitz, 178 
HeracleidesPonticns,10, 166,168 

— Lembus, 10 

— the Sceptic, 300 
Heracleitus of Ephesus, 36, 66, 

233 

— the Stoic, 287 
Herillus, 280, 232, 249 
Hermann, 91, 126 note, 132 
Hermarchus, 256 
Hermes Trismegistus, 316 
Hermias of Atarneus, 170 



360 



INDEX, 



Hennias the Neo-Platonist, 350 

— the Christian, 9 
Herminus, 295 
Hermippus, 10, 172, 226 
Hermodorus, 10 
Hermotimus, 84 
Herodotus the historian, 48 

— the Sceptic, 302 
Hesiod, 25 
Hestiasus, 165, 169 
Hesychius, 13, 172 note 
Hicetas, 67 
Hierocles, 348 

Hieronjmus the Rhodian, 226 
Hilden brand, 17 
Hipparchia, 118 
Hippasus, 56 

Hippias, 92, 96, 98 
Hippo, 43 
Hippobotus, 12 
Hippolytus, 8, 9 
Hirzel, 81 note, 231 note 
Hody, 319 
Hypatia, 347 



IAMBLICHUS, 8, 13, 343 ff. 
Jason, 279 
Ichthyas, 114 
Ideeus, 43 
Idomeneus, 11, 256 
Johannes Philoponus, 14 
Ionic Philosophers, 35, 37-45 
Irenasus, 9 
Isidorus, 354 
Isocrates, 170 
Juba, 307 
Julian, 347 
Justin, 8 
Justinian, 356 



XARSTEN, 58 note, 61 note 1 
Kirchhoff, 328 note 
Kirchner, 328 note 
Kopp, 354 note 
Krohn, 134 



MOB 

LACITDES, 270 
' Lffilius, 277 
Lang-e, 17 

Lassalle, 66 n^fte^ 69 
Leo, 225 

Leucippus, 36, 76 f. 
Lewes, 17 
Libanius, 347 
Lobeck, 319 
Longinus, 327 
Lucanus, 287 
Lucianus, 299 
Lucretius, 256 
Liitze, 39 note 

Lyco, opponent of Socrates, 
112 

— the Pythagorean, 10 

— the Peripatetic, 226 
Lycophron, 92 
Lysis, 49 



MACROBIUS, 356 
Marcianus Capella, 355 
Marinus, 354 

Marcus Aurelius. See Anto <iinuf 
Marsilius Ficinus, 328 nx)tt 
Maximus of Tyre, 297, 314 

— the Neo-Platonist, 346 
Megarians, 114-117 
Meiners, 15 

Meletus, 112 
Melissus, 65 ff. 
Menedemus of Eretria, 117 

— the Cynic, 118 

— the Academician, 166 
Menippus, 118 

Meno, 225 
Menodotus, 302 
Meton, 71 
Metrodorus of Chios, 83 

— the Anaxagorean, 88 

— the Epicurean, 256 

— of Stratonice, 280 
Meyer, J. B., 17, 203 iwte 
Mnesarchus, 278 
Moderatus, 12, 307, 310 
Moschus, 117 



INDEX, 



861 



MXTL 

Muller, H. F., 328 note 
Mullach, 18, 63 note^ 61 notet 65 

note, &c. 
Munk, 130 note, 133 
Musonius Rufus, 253 notOt 290 
Myson, 27 



VTAUSIPHANES, 83, 266 
11 Neanthes, 10 
Neleus, 179 
Neocles, 255 

Neo-Platonists, 32, 326 ff. 
Neo-Pythagoreans, 32, 306 ff. 
Nessus, 83 
Neuhauser, 39 note 
Nicolaus of Damascus, 283 
Nicomachus the Stagirite, 170 
— of Gerasa, 12, 307, 310 
Nigidius Figulus, 307 
Nigrinus, 297 
Nmnenius, 8, 297, 307, 314 



OCELLUS, 306, 309 
(Enomaus, 294 
Olympiodorus the elder, 348 

— the younger, 355 
Oncken, 131 

Origen the Platonist, 327 

— the Father, 8 
Orphic theogony, 26 



PAMPHILUS, 255 
Pansetius, 11, 114, 276, 

279 
Parmenides, 60 flE. 
Pasicles, 115 
Patro, 256 ff. 
Peregrinus Proteus, 294 
Periander, 27 
Pericles, 84 
Perictione, 126 
Peripatetics, 171, 222 ff., 282 fE., 

295 ff. 
Persafjus, 230 
Persius, 287 



Phaedo, 117 

Phaedrus, 256 
Phaenarete, 101 
Phanias, 10, 226 
Pherecydes, 25 
Philip, King, 171 

— of Opus, 10, 131, 165, 168 
Philo the Megarian, 115, 116 

— of Larissa, 280 

— the Jew, 8, 320 ff. 
Philodemus, 11, 175 
Philolaus, 45 mte 2, 49 flE. 
Philostratus, 307 
Phocylides, 27 
Phormio, 226 

Photius, 7 

Pittacus, 27 

Plato, 8, 10, 21, 30, 86, 104, 122, 

126-169, 199, 214 ff. 
Plotinus, 32, 328 ff. 
Plutarch of Chaeronea, 8, 9, 14, 

179, 297, 311 ff. 

— of Athens, 348 
Polemo, 169 
Pollio, 290 
Polus, 92, 96 
Polyaenus, 256 
Polystratus, 256 
Porphyrins, 8, 12, 340 ff. 
Posidonius, 253 note, 278 f. 
Potamo, 282 

Prantl, 17 
Praxiphanes, 226 
PreUer, 17 
Priscus, 347 
Proclus, 8, 14, 350 ff. 
Prodicus, 92, 96, 97 
Protagoras, 91, 95, 96, 97, 98 
Protarchus the Rhetorician, 92 

— the Epicurean, 256 
Proxenus, 170 
Prytanis, 226 

Ptolemaeus the Peripatetic, 173 

— the Sceptic, 300 f. 
Pyrrho, 268 f . 
Pythagoras, 45 ff. 
Pythagoreans, 35, 45 ff. 
Pythias, 170 



862 



INDEX. 



RIB 

RIBBING, 131 
Richter, A., 328 note 
Ritter, 16, 40 note 1 
Roth, 19, 46 note 
Elohde, 76, note 
Rose, 177 note 



SALLUSTIUS, 347 
Salonina, 828 
Sarpedon, 301 
Saturninus, 302, 304 
Satyrus, 10, 226 
Scaevola, 277 
Sceptics, older, 268 ff. 

— later, 300 ff. 
Schaarschmidt, 45 note 2, 130 
Schaubach, 84 note 1 
Schleiermacher, 15, 41, &% note^ 

69, 104, 107, 115, 130 note, 

132 
Schmidt, L., 17 
Schom, 84 note 1 
Schuster, 66 note 
Schwegler, 17, 174 note 
Scipio ^milianus, 275, 277 
Seneca, 8, 244, 254, 288 ff. 
Severus, 299 
Sextii, the, 286 
Sextus Empiricus, 8, 303 
Siebeck, 17 
Simmias, 114 
Simplicius, 14 
Siro, 256 

Socher, 130 note, 132 
Socrates, 29, 100, 101 ff 
Solomon, Wisdom of, 319 
Solon, 25, 27 
Sopater, 346 

Sophists, 29, 37, 88 fP., 137 
Sophroniscus, 101 
Sosicrates, 11 
Sosigenes, 295 
Sotion the Peripatetic, 10, 226 

— later Peripat etic, 295 

— of Alexandria, 286 
Speusippus, 10, 122, 166 
Sphrerus, 11, 230, 254 



TTB 

Stallbaum, 130 itote 

Staseas, 283 

Stein, von, 61 note 1, 72 n^te, 126 

note, 130 note 
Steinha-rt, 126 note, 130 n^U 
Stilpo, 115 
Stob^us, J., 7, 8 
Stoics, 31, 32, 229 3. 
— later, 276 ff., 287 ff. 
Strabo, 179, 279 
Strato, 225 
Strumpell, 16, 131 
Sturz, 72 note 
Suckow, 130 note 
Suidas, 13 
Susemihl, 130 note 
Synesius, 347 
Syrianus, 349 



TAURUS, 297 
Teichmuller, Q& note, 153 
note 2 
Telecles, 270 
Teles, 231 
Tennemann, 15 
Tertullian, 8 
Thales, 27, 55, 37 
Theagenes, 294 
Themistius, 297 
Theo of Smyrna, 297, 314 
Theodas (Theudas), 302 
Theodoretus, 8 
Theodorus the Atheist, 122, 125 

— of Asine, 346 
TTieogonies, 25, 26 
Theomnestus, 282 
Theophrastus, 8, 222 
Theosebius, 349 
Thrasyllus, 14, 132, 282 
Thrasymachus the Megarian, 

115 

— the Rhetorician, 92, 96, 98 
Tiedemann, 15 

Timasus the Locrian, 308 
Timon, 268 
Tubero, 301 
Tyrannio, 179, 282 



INDEX. 



TTSB 

UEBERWBG, 17, 180 note 
Usener, 133 



VALCKENAEK, 319 
Valentinus the Gnostic, 
315 
Varro, 285, 294 
Vatinius, 307 
Vatke, 61 note 
Vegetius, 355 
Victorinus, 355 



WACHSMUTH, 18 
Winckelmann, 117 fwte 



XANTHIPPE, 102 
Xenarchus, 283 
Xeniades, 92, 93 
Xenocrates, 10, 165, 166 ff. 
Xenophanes, 58 fE. 
Xenophon, 10, 104, 113 



ZALEUCUS, 306 
Zeno of Elea, 63 

— of Citium, 233 fle. 

— of Tarsus, 231, 277 

— the Epicurean, 256, 27€ 
Zeuxippus, 303 

Zeuxis, 303 
Ziegler, If 



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